


The Cost of Surviving

by travelingneuritis



Category: Le Bazar de la Charité | The Bonfire of Destiny (TV)
Genre: Death penalty, Dramatic Beautiful People Making Love, F/M, False Accusations, Filial Disobedience, French Kissing, Late-19th Century Social Anarchism, Secret Lovers, Traumatic Non-Character Death By Fire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:34:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 37,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28429356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/travelingneuritis/pseuds/travelingneuritis
Summary: A short novelization of everything left out of Alice and Victor's story, from the afternoon of the fire to an imagined post-script. I'm talking fainting spells, screaming matches with parents, impassioned lovemaking, Baby's First Anarchy, horny beautiful people making eyes at each other... everything I wanted more of in the show, expanding scenes and characterizations but not altering the plot. I wrote this to entertain myself, but maybe you'll like it too!
Relationships: Alice de Jeansin/Victor Minville
Comments: 5
Kudos: 11





	1. Chapter 1

On the morning of May 4th, 1897, Alice de Jeansin took a perfunctory glance in the pier-glass— though it was not necessary, not with Rose here to make her beautiful. She had never had to check Rose's work, not once in the three years since Rose had left behind her other duties and become Alice's dedicated maid. Rose did everything; she was indefatigable, what Madame Huchon next door would have called _un trésor_. Alice was a pretty girl, but she knew that most of her polish she owed to her lady's maid. It was Rose who kept her dozens of delicate ensembles in good and clean repair; Rose who drew her bath and brushed her hair; Rose who blent by hand the creams and potions that made Alice's skin soft and her cheeks bright; Rose who pulled tight the lacings on her corset and tucked the strings away, and fastened the hundred pearl buttons on her shirtwaist, and pinned her hair in glossy waves high on her head. Rose cared more about her mistress's appearance than Alice did herself— or, maybe, Alice knew she could afford to be careless, because it was Rose's job to care _for_ her.

Alice was twenty years old, lovely and accomplished, an heiress who was expecting to become a fiancée at any moment now. Most of the time, she was happy in her life. But sometimes— only rarely— she thought that she could be almost anyone. She had not earned her wealth, she had not chosen her accomplishments, she did not even put on her own makeup. It might as well be Rose sitting in this lavish bedroom. It was all an accident of birth.

"Are you well, Mademoiselle Alice?" asked Rose, concerned. Alice came back to herself. Rose cared for her. A maid was supposed to care for her mistress, of course, but she felt that between the two of them there was a special sympathy. It was more than she felt for Julien, her intended. At times it was more than she felt for anyone.

"I'm alright, Rose," she said, smiling. "I was just thinking of how very much I do not deserve you."

In the mirror, Rose beamed.

* * *

 _Le Bazar de la Charité_ was an annual event, a hallmark of spring in Paris. Alice looked forward to it every year. This year, she had been engaged to help Madame d'Tanquerville at her booth selling clocks for charity. But that would be a little later in the afternoon, which meant that she and Rose had a whole glorious hour to themselves first. Alice went in first— Rose took longer, dallying with the coachman outside a moment. Alice envied them, when she let herself think about it at all. She saw them sometimes, embracing in doorways, stealing kisses from each other like contraband.

"Rose! What kept you?" she asked archly when Rose joined her inside the Bazar.

Rose smiled, unblushing, and said placidly, "Nothing."

"Liar." Alice began strolling through the Bazar, looking at the crafts on display. "I saw you and Jean. Kissing in front of everybody— your own husband! I should be ashamed, if it were me."

Rose laughed, knowing she was being teased. She was too straightforward to tease back. "I cannot help but love him; loving him, I cannot help but want to be near him. And when I am near him—"

"I know what you cannot help," laughed Alice.

"But surely you feel the same way about Monsieur de la Ferté?"

Alice picked up a bottle of perfume, sniffed it, put it down. "Of course I do."

Rose _tsk_ ed, unconvinced. "You will feel it, Mademoiselle Alice. But you cannot feel it from across a wide chasm. If you let yourself get a little bit closer—."

Alice shrugged. She did not like to spoil the afternoon talking about Julien. She turned to go down another aisle, but in that instant was nearly knocked off her feet by a man pushing past her.

"Be careful!" she exclaimed, scowling.

"You rammed into _me_ ," he said. "Anyway, you're fine."

Alice's frown deepened. She did not like his tone, or the insolent look on his face. He was quite young, unshaven, shabbily-dressed with paint on his clothes and dirt under his nails. A worker for the Bazaar, probably. Not a patron.

"You could apologize," she snapped, annoyed.

"Apologize for what?" the man asked, raising his eyebrows— one of them rose higher than the other, like he was mocking her. "For working? Then forgive me for having a job. You do know about those?"

Alice seriously considered slapping him. Only Rose's quiet presence beside her prevented it. Her face felt hot. Horrid, rude man.

"You should be a little more careful in this crowd," the man said, his lips turning up in an unexpected smile. "You dropped something." There was a flash of silver. It took a moment for Alice to register what it was that was dangling from his fingers. Her own silver wrist watch, the one her aunt had given her for her birthday. She had not even felt it leave her arm. Furious, she snatched it back.

"So long, your Highness," said the man, sweeping her an ironic bow. Then, shooting her one last roguish grin, he vanished into the crowd. Alice watched him go, panting with rage.

"The clasp must be weak," said Rose, taking the watch from Alice and inspecting it carefully.

"Did you hear him? 'So long, your Highness.' What a—!" But she could not think of any word for him that could decently be said aloud.

"He was very rude," agreed Rose complacently. "Although it was good of him to return your watch to you."

"Rose, he obviously stole it in the first place."

Her maid smiled. "Probably. But then why would he fall into conversation with you? And why give it back?"

"How should I know? You'd better check your pockets. God knows what else he stole."

* * *

They meandered through the Bazaar, enjoying the sights. The warehouse in which it was being held had been set up to look like a little medieval town, with booths nestled under papier mache overhangs and painted canvas walls. It was worth it for the spectacle alone. Alice had seen it being set up, when she had come one day last week with her father. His cinematographic theater was one of the star attractions. He had poured a lot of money into it, and took as much pride in the display as if it were his own child. Alice visited the theater again, having traded her spot in Madame d'Tanquerville's booth for the temporary care of her neighbor Odette's young cinephile son. Then Julien came looking for her— Julien de la Ferté, who was expected to propose marriage to her any day now. Good family, good prospects, good-looking. They would have very respectable babies.

"I thought cinema bored you," teased Alice in an undertone.

"It does; but I was looking for you." He ignored completely the flashing lights and the delighted audience. He had eyes only for her. Alice smiled, pleased at the attention. He leant in to kiss her on the cheek, but she turned so that he kissed her lips instead. Their kisses were ordinarily so chaste, and it was impossible to feel anything from a mere peck. She opened her lips, and felt him do the same in response. His moustache tickled, but she ignored it. He tasted like the cornish hen he had eaten for lunch.

When they stopped, he was glowing with happiness. Alice smiled weakly back. Rose had always said that she knew she was meant to marry Jean when she kissed him for the first time and could not imagine ever kissing another; but Alice had now kissed Julien dozens of times, and she still could barely imagine kissing _him_.

After the film, little Thomas de la Trémoille begged to stay for another. Rose offered to sit with him so that Alice and Julien could walk together a while. He wanted to kiss her more, she could tell. Maybe she would let him.

They were having their photograph taken when they heard the first screams. Alice thought it must be part of an act— or perhaps the magician had too convincingly sawn a woman in half. But the screams went on, and others joined in. Men and women both, shouting the same word: _Fire_.

After the screams, the shoving began. Rose elbowed her way through the crowd to her mistress, her face rigid with fear.

"Mademoiselle Alice, thank God— we must leave, a fire has broken out—"

But there was nowhere to go. Alice smelled smoke at the same moment the rest of the guests did. She was pitched from side to side by panicked patrons making for the door en masse. Julien took one of her hands; with the other she clung to Rose. The crowd made it impossible to move autonomously; she had no choice but to go where she was swept. She saw a woman nearby trip and fall, and did not see her get up again. Alice stepped on something that might have been a hand, or an arm, but the crowd pressed her too closely even to look down. She stumbled herself, once or twice, but was jerked back onto her feet by Rose.

She managed, once, to turn her head, and saw a figure sprawled on the floor in the clear space behind the press of people. A woman in a dark coat, her face bloody, her body spasming oddly.

It was only then that Alice realized she might die.

She rejected the idea as soon as it had entered her head, but it had brought with it a panic that was not so easily dismissed. Rose still held her hand, Rose was here, Rose would protect her—

They saw the first flames at the same moment they came in sight of the revolving front doors. The doors were closer, but they were not moving; and the flames were.

"They're jammed!" someone screamed. A beam above their heads gave way, punching a hole in the roof. Cool night air poured into the hall, a mockery of relief in this stifling haze, and roused the burning front room into an inferno in seconds.

Rose jerked Alice back toward the coat check, the nearest area that was not yet ablaze. But there was nowhere to go from here. There was no other way out, no backdoor. Alice knew of a service entrance, but it was all the way on the other side of the building and impossible to reach from here. They had lost sight of Julien somewhere in the madness. A woman pushed past them screaming for her husband, and Rose yanked Alice away from the ashes smoldering in the woman's train. The electric lights overhead went out, so that the hellish yellow smoke was all they had to see by. Alice could barely see Rose, although she still held her hand tightly. She could not get breath in her lungs; the press of people was too great, the only thing holding her upright. She felt her feet sliding out from underneath her, and the dim blue of Rose's capelet swam and darkened before her eyes.

"Alice!" Rose screamed, crouching protectively over her mistress's prone body, striking out at legs and feet that stepped too near. "Alice, look at me— you must get up, we have to get out of here—"

She felt Rose's strong arms scoop underneath her from one side, and someone else supported her from the other. Julien. Julien had come back for them. But what could he do? What could anyone do? At least, away from the pressure of the crowd, she could breathe a little. She bit down hard on her lip to fight off the faintness. But the air was so hot it choked her.

"Under here," Rose commanded, her voice raspy from smoke. "Under the table— you too, Mr. de la Ferté— gather your skirt close, Alice, or it will catch a cinder."

Alice dragged herself upright, holding onto the leg of a table. There was not room under the tables for everyone, and burning debris rained down on those left out in the open. Alice felt blindly for Rose's hand again— not in the hope that they could escape together, but so that she might die holding onto a friend. Between them, Julien wept.

There was no air. Alice had read somewhere that smoky air killed as much as the flames did. The fire ate up all the oxygen, and you suffocated to death. She had read that— where had she read that? Rose's lips were moving, but Alice could not hear what she was saying. She had never guessed a fire could be so loud. It was like the roar of a train.

Witches. That was it. A book on witches, during the time of the Inquisition. The witches died from the smoke, not the flames. There were bodies burning on the other side of the room, and the flames were leaping nearer every moment. If Alice wanted to die from smoke inhalation, she had better do it soon. It was coming for her. The fire, the death. She was so afraid, more afraid than she had ever been in her life, but she felt her fear as a thing outside of herself. It clawed at her throat and her eyes, but she shoved it away. How else did the witches die? It was not only burning at the stake, she knew. Some were beheaded. Some were hanged. Some were drowned. She thought longingly of drowning, of a cold sinking into oblivion. She imagined that she might lie down in a snowbank, and fall asleep, and never wake.

She could not breathe. She could not get air. Just like the witches, she would die without God's breath in her lungs. Her throat was torn and ragged from coughing. She tried to keep the coughs in, to protect her suffering throat, but had not the strength. She tried to hold her breath, to suffocate herself by willpower alone before the fire landed on her skirts. But she could not do this either.

She felt a cold droplet land on her cheek, then another. The screams around her grew, and she became aware of a dark line of upright figures, bearing between them a hose that sprayed a thin stream of water onto the conflagration. They must have come from somewhere. There must be some way out.

The fire brigade dragged the people cowering under the tables to their feet and shoved them haphazardly toward a hole in the far wall, stumbling and slipping over the wreckage. Alice lost Julien's hand, then Rose's. In the push, she could not keep her feet under her. She fell again, and this time there was no one to pick her up. She tried to stand, but could not. A coughing fit wracked her body, and her spasming limbs would not obey her mind. Rose saw that she had been left behind; but Julien would not let her turn back, no matter how she screamed and beat at him with her fists. He did not know Alice had fallen; if Alice could only get her feet under her—

She saw Rose jerk free of Julien. She saw him push her away from him and run on toward the exit, without looking to see where she had fallen. He did not look, but Alice did. Rose crashed into a burning table which collapsed beneath her weight. Alice screamed and screamed, but she could not hear even her own voice anymore. Rose was still moving, trying to crawl away from the burning table. They must notice Rose, she was so near the exit, and Rose at least must survive—

A part of the roof caved in very close to Alice. She could no longer see Rose, nor any way out. Julien was gone, along with the last of the fire brigade. Too weak even to try to stand, she curled up on the floor, coughing helplessly.

 _Let it happen now, God_ , she prayed. _Let me die now, before the fire touches my skin. Dear God, let it not touch me, let me die like the witches, let me die like the heretics, from the smoke and not the fire…_

She lay there, praying for an end to her pain. She lay unable to move.

Then the world turned upside down, and she found herself looking up into a face covered by a scrap of dirty cloth.

"Mademoiselle!" shouted a voice from behind the cloth. "Mademoiselle, can you stand?" Strong arms looped around her and hoisted her onto her feet. She was so dizzy she almost fell over again, but the one who held her would not let her fall. He dragged her through the wreckage, kicking away burning chairs so that her skirts would not catch in passing. She tried to keep up, but her legs could barely move, and finally he just scooped her into her arms and carried her, his hand curled around her face to protect it from hot ashes raining down from the ceiling. The walk to the hole in the wall seemed to take hours; Alice strained to catch a glimpse of Rose as they went past where she had fallen, but saw nothing except the fire.

"Hold onto me, Mademoiselle," begged her rescuer, "we're almost out, just hold on until we get there…"

He pushed her through the opening in the stone facade and crawled out after her. She lay in the street, gasping for air, all her limbs shaking uncontrollably. She heard distant shouts, but could not discern their meaning. The man with the cloth over his face hauled her to her feet and dragged her into a restaurant across the street.

They stood in the cool marble lobby, clinging to each other in the foul glow from the Bazar across the way. The establishment's chef, still dressed in his white coat for work, helped them stagger further in, and hurried to shut the door against the smoke and heat of the street. Alice's legs gave out beneath her and she sank to the cool stone floor. Her rescuer was saying something, but the roar of fire was still in her ears and Alice could not hear anything else. His hand went to her face, brushing her hair away from her sweaty cheeks, trying to keep her conscious, to make her look at him. She was terribly thirsty, and her head felt faraway and woolly. He was asking her— what was he asking her? She could not make herself look away from his eyes, not even to blink. They were so very blue, the dark eyebrows above them uneven. He pulled down the dirty cloth that covered his nose and mouth, and tried again:

"Are you injured, Mademoiselle?"

Alice stared vacantly at his face, which was filthy and unshaven and quite young. Dazedly she looked down at the silver watch around her wrist, then back up at him. He glanced at her wrist, too, and she saw a flicker of recognition in his eyes. A third time, he asked her if she was injured.

"Injured?" she repeated. She tore her eyes from his and looked down at his hands, still holding her steady. A violent-looking burn was steaming on the back of his left hand. The sight of his split and melted flesh shocked the life back into her.

"You're hurt," she rasped. "You're hurt!"

"Mademoiselle—"

"He's injured," she yelled, louder this time. "This man is injured— help, please help him!" The chef ran away and came back with a stack of napkins and a champagne bucket of cold water. Hands shaking, Alice rolled up the man's ruined jacket sleeve, revealing a burn that snaked halfway up his forearm. She dunked a napkin in the water and draped it, still dripping, over the burn. The man sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth.

"I'm sorry," whispered Alice, "I know it hurts." Looking up, she found his eyes unwavering upon her. Blood ran down his face from a cut across the bridge of his nose, and another wound somewhere higher up. She followed a trail of blood up to his hair, tracing the line of it with the tips of her fingers, and probed delicately at the source. Tears streamed from her smoke-burned eyes and the breath rattled in her lungs, but she forced her hands not to shake by force of sheer will. She picked detritus out of his singed hair, carefully removing a splinter of glass still sticking out of a gash in his scalp and flicking it away. The whole time, those blue eyes never left her face.

There was a thunderous boom from across the street as something massive in the burning structure gave way. The man pulled Alice further in, putting his body between her and the glass windows. He held onto her for another moment, steeling himself; then he got to his feet.

"Where are you going?" called the chef.

"They still need help," grunted the man, pulling the cloth back up over his face. Alice scrambled after him, trying to hold him back, to keep him from his death; but he slipped away from her, out the front door. On the floor lay the wet napkin she had put on his wound, stained with his blood. She heard a feral screaming from somewhere far away, and felt someone's arms restraining her. It was a long time before she realized that the sound was coming from her, and longer still before it stopped.

* * *

It was hours before someone could be found to drive Alice home. Her mother burst out of the house and ran sobbing down the drive before she had taken two steps toward her front door. She almost collapsed again, but her mother caught her, and then she was surrounded by servants who half-carried her into the house. She was brought to her room, past Paul and Marguerite who stared at her wide-eyed in their pajamas.

"I've sent for Dr. Fourquet, darling, but he can't come until tomorrow." Maman helped her out of her coat, and then undressed her as if she were a little girl while a maid drew a bath next door.

"I'm all right," mumbled Alice. "I'm not even hurt. Others— other people—" Rose. The woman with cinders in her skirt. The man who pulled her out. Rose.

"Let me look at you anyway," said Maman. So Alice submitted to her mother's care, and allowed herself to be bathed and looked over for hurt. The skin on her face and hands was red and rough, no worse than a day's sunburn. There was a hole singed through her stockings and a shiny pink burn from the top of her right boot to mid-calf, where she must have brushed against something while she was running. Thank God that her stockings were silk, which did not catch as easily as cotton or artificial silk. Wool burned even less well. Rose's capelet had been wool, perhaps it had protected her, perhaps she had still been alive when—

Alive when what? When the whole Bazar had caved in on top of her? When the fire brigade had given up and reeled their hoses in? When the watch thief had run back toward the blaze? The thought of him sent a tremble of misery through her. Why had she not prevented him from going back? Why had she not held him tighter, held Rose tighter, why had she let herself be weak enough to need saving? Why, in God's name, had the weak survived while the strong had been sacrificed? Unbidden to her mind came the sight of Julien tossing Rose aside. A sob ripped through her.

"Rose," she moaned. " _Julien!_ "

"He's alive, my love. Jean found him alive and uninjured," her mother assured her, smoothing her hair from her face as she helped her from the tub. It was not her mother's hand she felt on her skin, but the watch thief's rough fingers. Her mind conjured images of him in all stages of agony— agony so easily avoided, had he but stayed with her in safety! Why had she let him run headlong to his death, while Julien, _Julien_ , the most useless man in Paris, lived on?

That dreadful sound was ripping through her again. Through a fog of anguish she felt her mother's maid hold her down on the bed, while Maman held a spoonful of something sickly sweet against her lips. She swallowed the liquid convulsively, and felt consciousness slipping away as her mother lay down beside her and enveloped her in her arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My sister showed me this miniseries a week ago and I became instantly obsessed. Victor and Alice are definitely the C-plot, which I think is why I'm so interested in expanding on their story— I would have been happy with 6 more hours of them gazing longingly into each other's eyes while synth music plays. Fair warning, this fic was written with the express intention of Feeling Good and Being Happy. No one has bad breath or lice or dysentery, and everyone gets exactly what's coming to them. We're living in a goddamn pandemic, I just want a couple horny french twenty-somethings fucking in a cave. I'm proud of myself for actually finishing something before this hell year ended.
> 
> I would definitely recommend this show to anyone who wants a melodramatic romance that delivers on every front, but be careful because that first episode is pretty hard to get through. I did view it all the way through the first time, but on re-watches for the fic I put it the fire scenes on mute with my finger hovering over the skip 10 seconds button.


	2. Chapter 2

When Alice woke, her mouth was sticky-sour and her throat felt full of sand she could not cough up. Her mother, fully dressed and dozing in a chair, jolted awake. She called for her maid and sat on the bed beside her daughter, holding a glass of cool water to her lips. Alice drank thirstily and asked for more. From the slant of the sun it was midmorning at least. She sat up; the water sloshed in her stomach, and she immediately vomited up most of it into her mother's lap.

"My poor girl," Maman crooned, holding her hair out of her face. Her maid dabbed at her soiled clothes with a towel, but Maman shooed her away. "I will change later, Louise, thank you. Bring Mademoiselle Alice a tray of weak tea, with bread and butter."

"Maman," Alice croaked. Her voice came out gravelly and hoarse. "Rose— did they find Rose?"

"Your father went out checking the hospitals for you as soon as we heard of the accident; we have not been able to reach him yet, to tell him you are safe, but Jean is with him. Jean will be asking for Rose. If she is in any of the hospitals in Paris, they will find her."

 _If_.

"Drink a little more, darling. But slowly. You're very weak."

"Aunt Adrienne was at the Bazaar," said Alice. "But I think she left. So was Odette de la Trémoille, and she had Thomas with her. Do you know if they're all right?"

"I don't know yet, my love. We are still waiting for news." Her mother let out a shaky breath. "Paul and Marguerite have been begging to be allowed to see you. They've been out of their minds ever since we heard."

"Yes. Yes, let me just get cleaned up, Mama, and they can come in. I want to see them, too."

Creakily Alice shrugged off her dressing gown, the only garment they had been able to put on her before the sleeping drops took hold, and inspected her unclothed body in the mirror. Much of the redness had faded already; she could tell that someone had put rosehip cream on her face, hands and legs while she slept, so that already she was healing. The burn on her leg was not too bad, and wouldn't show at all under stockings. She rubbed lotion onto it, gritting her teeth against the discomfort, and cleaned her hands and face at her basin. She had slept on wet hair, and it showed: her flaxen waves had dried in a rat's nest around her face. She slipped into her softest chemise and dressing gown and sat at her vanity with a brush in her hand.

"Can I do it?" asked Marguerite from the doorway. "I'll be gentle."

"You're always gentle," said Alice. "Come in, Margie. You too, Paul."

She handed the brush to Marguerite and sat back in her chair. Her sister pulled the brush very slowly through her hair, starting at the bottom and working her way up.

"Are you hurt?" Paul asked her quietly. He had one finger in his mouth, wiggling at a tooth that had been loose for days.

"Only a little," answered Alice.

"Maman was crying all night until you came home," Marguerite said. "Then Jean came and said they found Julien, but not you, and she cried louder."

"Alice? Where's Rose?" asked Paul. "She said she would help pull my tooth out if it didn't fall out by itself."

"I'll do it, if you want." Alice prodded his loose tooth. It was hanging by a thread. "Hold still, Paulie, and count to three." She gripped his tooth firmly between thumb and forefinger.

"One… two… "

Alice tugged, and the tooth popped free. Paul flinched, then giggled. The sound startled a smile out of Alice, followed almost at once by a prickle of tears.

"Were the flames big?" Paul asked curiously.

Alice stared at Paul's tooth on the vanity. The tears slipped down her cheeks, bringing with them no relief. "Don't think about it," she said numbly.

"Children, will you leave us, please? Your sister needs to rest." Her father had come home. He was standing in the doorway, gazing at her with red-rimmed eyes. Marguerite and Paul kissed her and went out. Her father sat down beside her.

"Papa," whimpered Alice. "Papa, Rose…"

"Jean is scouring the hospitals," her father said falteringly. "I'm sure he'll find her."

"It's no use," said Alice, crumpling. All her things were still laid out, just where Rose had left them yesterday. She had spent almost as much time in this room as Alice herself did. Her absence was all over it.

"Maybe she isn't at Beaujon Hospital," said her father, covering her hand with his. "Don't lose hope, Alice."

"She's dead. Julien pushed her." She saw it every time she closed her eyes. She could not unsee it. "She fell. She didn't get up."

"What are you talking about? Julien would never do such a thing."

"He killed her!" Alice turned to her father, tears streaming freely down her face. "To save his own skin! I saw him push her." Her father was looking at her uncomprehendingly, a frown on his chin. "He pushed her. She didn't get up."

"You're… you're in shock. You've been through so much. You must rest. Please, don't tell your mother. We'll talk about it again when you're feeling better." She could see it on his face: he didn't believe her. He would not even try to believe her.

"He killed her, Papa," she whispered helplessly. It was the truth. The truth should matter.

"Try to get some sleep," he said gently, guiding her over to the bed. She let him tuck her in and kiss her cheek. She waited for the door to close, and then she dissolved in tears.

* * *

All the rest of that morning Alice paced the floor of her bedroom, from the window to the vanity to the bed and back again. She watched Julien make the long trek up the gravel drive, his overcoat giving him an impression of bulk and bearing he did not truly possess. Did she detect a falter in his step? Was he ashamed of what he had done? Watching him, she could not tell. She did not believe she knew him at all. She knew that watch-thief better than she knew her own beau.

When her mother came to fetch her, she lay on her bed and pretended to be too tired to move. But it was a lie. She was not tired at all anymore. She was angrier than she had ever been in her life. If she saw Julien in this state, she did not know what she might say or do. In a way this ugly rage was more endurable than grief, but it could not solve anything. When Julien left without seeing her, she only felt worse, because now the rage had nowhere to go. When her mother came to ask her down to lunch, she was grateful for an excuse to move around a little, at least. But then she must sit at that silent table, pretending to drink her soup, while her mother and father exchanged worried glances they thought she couldn't see.

Jean interrupted their lunch to ask permission to visit the morgue. Looking at his ashen face, Alice saw the pain she felt magnified a hundredfold, and knew that she could not let him go alone.

They tried Beaujon first, the largest of the hospitals in the city. Jean would not let Alice come into the morgue with her. She insisted at first, until she realized that he could not bear to have an audience if he should find Rose's body among the rest of the dead. She waited in a little-used side doorway and watched orderlies load coffin after coffin onto a row of hearses lined up in the drive. Many were grand coaches overhung with black velvet and silver, others were simple wooden carts drawn by a single horse. For some reason this discrepancy irritated her: were not the dead all equal?

A trample of footsteps echoed down the winding stair at her back, startling her out of her reverie. She turned and stared. A dirty young man with dark blue eyes and a bandage around his hand bounded down the stairs two at a time. Her watch thief. Her savior.

She could not move a muscle, although her mind screamed at her to touch him, to speak to him, to make sure he was real, and really here. He almost ran past, but looked up at the last moment. Recognition lit up his whole face. She could not breathe.

"Hello," he said, gazing at her in delighted disbelief.

"Hello," she managed to say. Her heart was racing. He had survived. She took an involuntary step nearer. "Are you alright?"

"Yes, I'm very well," he said eagerly. "And you?"

She drank in the sight of him, from his singed brown hair to the charred clothes hanging off his lean frame to the strip of white linen wrapped around his hand and arm. "And your hand?"

He looked at the appendage as though he had forgotten it was there. "It's fine," he said dismissively. He glanced back up the stairwell, frowning at a commotion at the top, and led her outside to get some air. There was even more excitement in the courtyard, cops trotting up the drive in groups and shouting back and forth.

It happened very fast. The watch thief looked at the cops, looked at Alice, and made up his mind in an instant. He pushed her gently against the wall and folded her into his arms, his hand cupping the back of her head to protect it from the rough stone behind her. At first she was too startled to evade him. She watched the police run past them into the building they had just vacated. Comprehension dawned, but still she did not push him away. In a moment the police were gone, and he released her, although he continued to stand much nearer than was strictly necessary or polite. His eyes roved across her face and hair, lingering on her lips. At this distance, he smelled of smoke and sweat and something else unnameable and appealing. Alice swallowed hard. 

"You're hiding from the police?" she asked, struggling to recover her senses.

"Oh, no, that's not my style," he said, shaking his head emphatically. He leaned in closer, eyes sparkling. "I do have to leave, though. You coming?"

In her relief and gratitude at finding him again, she really considered it. She wanted more than anything to take him somewhere safe, bathe the dried blood from his face and brush the soot from his dirty hair. She wanted to thank him somehow. She nearly said yes. If not for Jean, she would have. 

"I'm waiting for a friend," she said regretfully. 

"Hey, no problem. See you later, I hope." He backed away, and this time it was she who closed the distance between them. She was not ready for him to leave her again.

"I ride in the Bois de Boulogne daily!" she called after him, incautious, desperate that he should not be lost to her a second time. "At the Plaine des Hêtres!" 

He glanced at her over his shoulder, a grin on his face. "I'll be there!" he yelled, and sprinted out through the exit. She watched him go, heart pounding, and uttered a fervent prayer thanking God for the miracle of his being alive. He had survived, and she would see him again.

But God had only one miracle for her today. It was only a few minutes later that Jean came out from the morgue, his shoulders drawn, a flash of gold in his hands. He looked up at Alice, and she knew at once what it was he held: Rose's bracelet, the only jewelry she had worn besides her wedding band. Alice had given it to her for Christmas. 

Jean's legs buckled; he could not stand. Alice ran to him, and fell to her knees on the gravel beside him, pulling him into her arms. He sobbed into her coat, his animal wails echoing off the brick facades surrounding them. After all the tears she had shed Alice should have had nothing left, but she wept, too, holding Jean up in the cold spring twilight.

* * *

Alice helped Jean up to the quarters he had shared with his wife, supporting his weight physically at times. Every surface of his room bore traces of Rose: her shawl neatly folded on the end of the bed, the hair still clinging to her brush, the scent of her soap. Afraid to see these things, Alice looked only at Jean, offering him a drink of water or a fresh hanky. Her father stood uselessly in the doorway. Papa must have hoped that she would find answers, or closure; for no other reason had he given her permission to accompany Jean to the morgue. But his plan had backfired. She now could think of nothing else but the death of her beloved Rose, who had been tossed aside by one who should have been her protector. She met her father's eyes and let him see that she had not forgotten. She would not forgive.

She refused dinner that night. She refused to let anyone into her room, although both her parents came up to bid her good night. She walked the floor until the moon rose, still in the clothes she had put on that morning. There was a portrait of her and Julien on her bedside stand, a photograph taken a few months after he had begun to court her in earnest. She had a picture of him but not of Rose; it was indecent. Every time she looked at it she wanted to scream. Very well, she would never look at it again. She threw it on the floor, and ground it under the heel of her boot.

Rose had worked for the Jeansins for fifteen years, starting out as a housemaid when Alice was only a little girl and Rose herself not very much older. Alice had had little to do with her then, but Rose had been a part of her life for nearly as long as she could remember. When she had put up her hair at the age of eighteen it had made perfect sense that Rose should become her lady's maid. Rose had steady, capable hands; she was as good with a needle as with a brush and comb; she was scrupulously clean, polite, attentive, trustworthy. She had a streak of fun which rarely showed abovestairs, and she was unfailingly kind to animals and children. These were the qualities that made Rose _un trésor_ , and which had drawn first Jean's eye and then his devotion. Although the distinction of rank had never been compromised, Alice had taken advantage of every opportunity to show her regard for Rose, giving her such gifts as were appropriate from mistress to maid, and offering her bonuses at the least provocation. She had thought of her with unequaled tenderness, and would have gone to great lengths to oppose any eventuality that contributed to Rose's unhappiness. She had not lost only a valuable lady's maid; she had lost her closest friend. 

And Rose was a hero. She had brought Odette de la Trémoille's little son to safety, then come back into a building on fire to save Alice. She had been as courageous as the blue-eyed man who had carried Alice from the wreckage; she just hadn't been as lucky. Had she had the good fortune to be born into a family like the Jeansins, she would have been worshiped by all of society as the paragon of virtue that she was, celebrated and mourned by friends and strangers. But because she was born into the middle class and employed as a domestic, she would be buried beneath a humble stone without so much as a photograph to leave behind.

And Julien, _Julien_. Alice saw him now for what he was: good not by nature, but by circumstance. For all Rose's integrity and hard work, she would never have what Julien had by mere accident of birth. All Julien had to do was exist, and he got whatever he wanted. He was a foolish little nothing man, who had no form but that given him by his tailor and no scent but what came out of the perfumier's bottle. He wooed Alice by reciting other men's poetry, and he survived the fire by trading his life for another's. She could never love him. What was there to love?

In a dark corner of her mind a more fearful thought was germinating: was Alice really any better than Julien? Was she anything more than a mirror-image of a girl? Was she made only of her shining yellow hair and her shell-pink lips and her beautiful, expensive clothes? She could not say honestly that she deserved to be alive any more than Rose did. She had not earned her own survival. It had been a gift given to her by better, braver people.

She dozed off at the unforgiving hour of three a.m. and woke a few hours later, unrefreshed but unable to lie still any longer. She ate a few impatient bites of breakfast and sent word that a riding horse was to be made ready. Her mother's maid Louise helped her dress and do up her hair, and then she put on her coat and rode to the Bois de Boulogne, the Jeansins' stable attendant Georges following a little behind.

She told her chaperone to wait for her at the entrance to the park, as she wanted to push her horse. The morning sun was fine and bright, the air cold. The Plaine des Hêtres tended to be muddy at this time of year, which made it less popular than other sectors of the park. Alice was grateful for the seclusion today. She brought her horse up to a gallop, revelling in the sharp brisk wind against her face. She told herself she was not looking for him; then, unable to convince herself of this obvious lie, she told herself she only wanted to thank him properly by name. She rode her usual route twice without seeing him, and began to fear she would not see him at all today. Would he come tomorrow? Would he come the day after, or indeed ever? Was it not the height of self-importance to believe that a man who had to work for his bread would appear at her bidding? Who was she, that he should meet her here in the wind and mud?

On her third round she saw him and felt better at once. Even from a distance her eyes knew his face, and she drank in the sight of him as long as she could. He could not have been more shabby. He wore at least three coats, none of which fit him particularly well, and his pants were so mended that they were more patchwork than original. His boots were a disgrace, and he had not even a hat on. Yet as Alice drew up beside him she saw nothing but his clear and honest face, washed since yesterday though still battered and unshaven. Her relief at seeing him here was so strong it was almost like madness. She could not understand herself.

He greeted her, smiling openly. "How are you?"

"Well, thank you," she said, catching her breath. "And you?"

"I'm fine, thanks." He stared up at her without moving. His smile grew. "What is your name, Mademoiselle? I want to know what to call you in my mind, when I think of you later." She felt her face grow warm. He raised his eyebrows, waiting.

"Jeansin," she said, a little breathlessly. "Alice de Jeansin. Who… who are you?"

"Victor."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Victor," she said. His smile broadened. "What?"

"I like the way you say it," he said, shrugging.

"I'm sure I say it the same as everyone else!"

"You don't."

He was laughing at her. She was losing control of the situation. "I… my family and I want to reward you," she announced. "We have money."

He scoffed, uninterested. "I don't care about money."

She looked at his boots, his coat, his hatless head. His cheeks were red with cold after walking here from God knew where. He didn't want _money?_

"What do you want, then?" she asked, frowning.

"This is what I want," he said simply. "To spend time with you. I like you." She turned away so that he could not see her blush, but he saw it anyway. He laughed quietly behind her. "And you like me, too," he added.

"What makes you say that?" She nudged her horse to walk in a circle around Victor.

"You wouldn't be here otherwise."

"I have a fiance," she forced herself to say. 

"Oh? And how do you say _his_ name?"

Alice could not help smiling. Impertinent, impossible man—! "My chaperone is waiting," she said primly. "I should go."

"I have Saturday morning off. Will I see you here?" he asked.

"I have to go. Good day to you, Victor." She circled him once more, then rode back the way she had come.


	3. Chapter 3

All day Friday, Alice wondered if she had the nerve to see him again. She lay in bed and thought about him upon waking. She thought of him while she helped Marguerite practice her piano. She thought about him over lunch and over dinner. When she kissed her parents goodnight, she was wondering where he was. When she readied herself for bed, she tried to picture his surroundings. She felt ashamed of herself for fixating on this stranger so entirely; but she could not stop. All thoughts led back to him, sooner or later.

They had had too little time to talk. That was the problem. She knew nothing about him. He might be a stupid man after all, or mean. She did not believe that. Rather, she hoped. It would be so much easier.

She longed for Rose more than ever during these tortured hours. She had no one she could confide in. Rose had been possessed of such a keen sense of judgment. Rose would have known what to do; Rose would have had something pithy and wise to say. Rose would…

But she could not think about her friend for very long without collapsing in on herself. Her emotions had never been so polarized: on the one hand, Rose was dead. On the other, Victor lived and wanted to see her again.

She woke Saturday morning without a doubt left in her mind. She must see him. She had not even a choice in the matter. She rode out early, taking the same stable attendant as before and, once again, leaving him at the entrance to the park.

"I may be some while," she said, pressing a few bills into his palm. "Buy yourself a coffee to keep warm, if you like."

He counted the bank notes and glanced quickly at her face, then tucked them discreetly in his pocket. "Thank you, Mademoiselle."

The Plaine des Hêtres had never seemed so long. It seemed to take Alice years to cross it, although she took it at a brisk canter. Her heart lurched miserably as she rode past the spot where he had been waiting before, now empty. She had been too evasive; he had taken her hints too well, and was leaving her alone. It had been stupid of her to come here. She was ashamed of herself.

A figure in brown was walking toward her down the lakeside path. A figure long-legged and slim, wearing too many coats. She pulled up her horse and dismounted. 

"I'm glad you decided to come," she said falteringly. "Even though I did not give you much reason to."

"Seeing you again is reason enough. Yesterday was long."

Alice walked on in the direction he had come from, her horse's reins looped around her wrist. "You worked, yes? What did you do?"

"I built a scaffolding at a rich man's palace, so that roofers could repair his gutters." He wrapped his lips around the word  _ rich _ like it was an epithet. 

Alice bit the inside of her lip. "You're a carpenter, then?"

"Among other things."

She stopped walking and looked at him. She knew something about his  _ other things _ . "Why did you return my watch?" she asked bluntly. "I didn't even notice it was gone until you gave it back. You might have kept it."

"If you thought I stole your watch, you might not have wanted to see me again. I was only thinking of myself."

Alice smiled, allowing herself to be charmed. Seeing this, he moved closer and tucked her hand under his arm. Just as if he had a right to.

"My brother chewed me out for it, afterward," he admitted. "He saw me talking to you. Called it an unnecessary risk. I say it  _ was _ a risk, but a necessary one. After all, here you are."

They had fallen into an easy saunter, their steps well-matched. Alice let herself enjoy the pressure of his arm in hers, the sharp bite of wind on her cheeks, the shocking blue expanse of sky above them. It was a glorious morning.

"I'm not here because of the watch," she said quietly.

He glanced over at her. "I know."

"Victor."

"Mm?"

"When you went back… did you find anyone else alive?"

His steps slowed. He turned to look at her. "I couldn't find a way back in," he said. "All the exits had collapsed by then. I helped them carry the…" He trailed off, looking at the ground.

"Carry the bodies," she finished for him. "I should have gone with you; I could have helped."

"No, you couldn't have."

"I could; I'm not as useless as I look," she said bitterly.

"I don't think you're useless," he said gently. "But you could barely breathe. You couldn't even stand up. Alice, why are you angry? Tell me. Please."

"I'm not," she replied automatically.

"You forget, I know what you look like angry."

She let out a low, bitter laugh. "Well, fine. I  _ am _ angry. All those men, shoving. Stampeding like wild animals. I understand that everyone was in a panic, but some people still remembered how to be human." She closed her eyes, and Rose was there beside her, in her cap and wool capelet, shaken but alive. She opened them, and Rose was gone. "I lost someone very dear in that fire. She had escaped, she was safe; but she came back in for me, and then I lived and she did not. If it had been truly an accident, perhaps I could bear it. But she— she was pushed. A man pushed her, and she fell. She might have lived if not for him. She might have lived if not for  _ me _ ." A few tears slipped down her cheeks. She wiped them away furiously but could not hold them back. Not as long as he was looking at her like that, his sharp face made soft with compassion. When he cupped one hand against her cheek and brushed her tears away with his thumb, she did not draw back. She leaned into his touch, which already had begun to feel familiar.

"Do not be sorry to be alive," he said. "It is all you have."

"It's not enough. I want more. I want to do more,  _ be  _ more than simply alive."

"It's not too late for that," he said, still cradling her face in his hand, incredibly close and impossibly tender. "You have more power than you think."

"Victor…"

He closed the few inches between them. Her lips met his eagerly. He tasted delicious; to kiss him was the most natural thing in the world. He kissed her damp cheeks and the line of her jaw. He tangled his hands in her hair, disarranging it. With a thrill of revelation she knew that this was what had been missing; Julien had never kissed her like  _ this,  _ and never could.

"Victor, do you really think this world is worth living in?" she asked, a little desperately.

He considered her question. "The way it is?" he said finally. "I don't know. But the way it could be… " He placed one more small kiss on her lips. "This world does not have to be a prison. It is possible to live free."

Another morning rider was approaching along the lake. Alice glared at the intruder resentfully, until Victor laughed at her. 

"I have to go," he said regretfully. "I'm already late."

"What are you doing today?" she asked. She wanted to be able to imagine him.

"Day work in the 9th Arrondissement. Carting bricks out of someone's basement."   


"But your hand isn't healed yet. You might hurt it again."

"I don't really have a choice."

Alice took his left hand and looked it over. The bandage had been wrapped inexpertly; it was dangling precariously from his arm. Working carefully so as not to hurt him, she unwrapped it and looked at the wound. His arm seemed to be healing all right, but the back of his hand looked worse than it had to begin with. The wrecked flesh still oozed, and the place where the skin had split had not begun to knit closed. It couldn't help that he kept reusing the same soiled strip of linen to wrap it.

"You need a new bandage," she said, frowning. 

"I only have this one."

"Then you must have someone wash it for you in hot water, and leave it off when you are not using the hand. You should wash the wound, too, with mild soap. Your hand won't heal properly like this."

"I'll… do that." He watched, bemused, as she took a clean handkerchief from her pocket, folded it up and laid it against the angry-looking wound. Then she re-wrapped the bandage loosely but securely over it, and fixed it in place with one of her own hat pins.

"There. That's all right for today. Please be careful with it, will you?" She looked at him sidelong. "What are you smiling at?"

He laughed. "Nothing. You. Thank you for fixing it." He kissed her one last time before running back along the lake. Alice watched until she couldn't see him anymore; then she mounted her horse again and rode back toward the entrance.

* * *

She was flushed and flustered after her stolen minutes with Victor, and could not seem to cool the fever from her cheeks. She picked listlessly at a sandwich and swallowed a cup of tea. Paul and Marguerite begged her to play with them after lunch. 

"Did you practice your piano yet, Marguerite?"

"I did it this morning. Alice, you look pretty today."

"Your face is all red," piped up Paul. 

Alice laughed. "All right, all right. What would you like to play?"

They played Kim's Game first. Alice arranged ornaments from around the parlor onto a tray and showed them to Paul and Marguerite. Then she covered the tray with a napkin, and they had to try to remember all the objects now concealed. After this they played Lookabout, and then Freeze.

"One, two, three..." said Alice.

"Freeze!" said Julien. He had come into the parlor quietly, so as to take her by surprise. She stiffened, and felt all the blood leave her cheeks. She turned around slowly.

"You're avoiding me," he said. He was smiling, but his smile looked hurt. "Your father invited me for lunch."

Her brother and sister were grinning at her expectantly, suppressing giggles. They liked Julien, who had been a fixture of the Jeansins' social circle as long as they had been alive. They were begging Julien to join in their game, but Alice made them leave. 

Julien watched them walk dejectedly out of the room. "I'm glad you're alright," he said, taking a hesitant step toward her. "I was so worried about you."

" _ Now _ you worry about me?" she said. He flinched as if he had been slapped, but she didn't care if it was cruel. She didn't care for his feelings at all. She was going to say more, and worse, but her mother had come into the hall, and she was crying. Alice pushed impatiently past Julien and went into the hall.

"Auguste," Maman was sobbing, tears dripping onto Papa's suit jacket. "Adrienne, what shall I do without her…"

Aunt Adrienne. Alice had seen her at the Bazaar, but she had thought she'd seen her heading toward the exit long before the fire broke out. They had been worried, but optimistic. Her husband Marc-Antoine had not believed she could be dead, and he was such a powerful man that whatever he believed always came true. 

Alice was sick of powerful men. She was sick of the way they lied to themselves and the world, sick of the way they rose above suffering by standing on the shoulders of others. Julien had crept into the hall alongside her, a useless, timid mouse.

"You pushed us," said Alice tonelessly. "You trampled us."

"Who did, Alice?" He looked lost, and confused.

"You did. Men did." Rose. Aunt Adrienne. All those women. There were so few men's names on the growing lists of the dead. 

"It's not true—"

"At least admit your own cowardice," she spat. Her parents were staring at her in horror.

"Alice, what's gotten into you?" her mother asked, aghast. "Julien is a man of honor—"

"It was coachmen and waiters and laborers who saved us," she insisted. "Not so-called men of honor."

"But Julien looked for you," Maman said feebly.

"A lie! Rose looked for me!"

"I lost you in the crowd…"

"You ran away and left me in the blaze! I was alone, I almost died!"

"That's your story," he said furiously. "Not mine!"

The whole world went dark for a moment. She slapped Julien across the face, hard enough to send him reeling. She had never struck another living creature before, but in this moment she could have done anything to hurt him. 

"Alice! Apologize at once!" Her father bellowed. "This behavior is inexcusable!"

"Pushing a woman into a fire to save your own skin is excusable, but calling it out is not?" she screamed. She shoved Julien, who stumbled back against a potted fern. "Rose is dead because of you!  _ You _ pushed her,  _ you _ killed her!  _ Man of honor _ — I'm sick to death of the sight of you!" She spun on her heel and raced up the stairs to barricade herself in her room.

* * *

All that day Alice paced her room. When night fell, she lay in bed too miserable to sleep. Julien, her father, Adrienne's slimy, powerful husband— they were all cut from the same cloth. They did whatever they pleased; they decided what was true and what was not.

_ This world does not have to be a prison _ , Victor whispered in her ear. _ It is possible to live free. _

She had not been caught in this trap, she'd been born into it. Was Maman living in the same trap? Did she feel the press of captivity? How long before Marguerite awoke to her own imprisonment? How long before Paul learned he could act like Julien, like Papa? For some reason that prospect was the most horrible of all. Paul was only eight. He didn't have all his grown-up teeth yet. His highest aspiration was to go for a long train ride to the sea. He craved Alice's attention; and visibly suffered when she had no time for him. He was the sweetest boy in the world. As Julien had been, when  _ he _ was eight. 

The next morning, Maman brought her a breakfast tray herself, and shut the door behind her. She sat on the bed and made Alice eat.

"You look as if you barely slept," she said, smoothing her daughter's hair.

"I didn't." Alice's voice came out in a croak. "I couldn't. Are you here to tell me I imagined it, too?"

"No. I won't tell you that. You have always been an honest girl, even when you were little."

"Maman…" she moaned, falling into her mother's arms. "How can I ever look him in the eye again? How can I ever forgive him?"

"My little daffodil," her mother murmured, stroking her pale yellow hair. "You will have to do it by degrees. You cannot do it all at once. Don't try to forgive more than you are ready for. But do not feed your anger, either, or it will soon be taking bites out of  _ you _ ."

"Do I have to go to church today?"

"No, not if you don't feel well. I will make an excuse to your father."

Alice swallowed her tea. Her father hated it when she missed; if she let her mother make her excuses now, when he was already angry at her, they would have a row. And Maman was grieving too.

"I'll go," she said, getting up. "We will light votives for Aunt Adrienne after. I'm sorry, Maman. I'm sorry for everything."

"Oh, Alice," said her mother. Tears were sparkling in her eyes. "You have nothing to apologize for. Not to me."

If Julien was at church, Alice did not see him. But he came to the house after lunch, which Alice took alone in her room. She agreed to talk to him only because her mother asked it of her. They walked in silence down the tree-lined avenue alongside the house. Alice didn't talk for a while. Let him defend himself, if he could.

"Your father asked me to come," said Julien stiffly. "But if you have nothing to say, I'll leave."

Alice faced him, struggling to hold onto her temper. "Did you never wonder how I got out?" 

"You got out. What does the method matter, so long as you're alive? I didn't abandon you. I was holding your hand. Remember that." He reached for her hand now, but Alice snatched it away. "I did everything I could to protect you. Everything."

"No." She shook her head. "That's not true. Another man saved me. Another man risked his life to save mine. And he did it without pushing another woman into the flames."

"I didn't push—"

"You did! I saw you push her!"

"No—"

"I saw you!" Her voice had risen to a shout. "Admit what you did! You can't undo it by pretending it never happened! Say it, Julien.  _ Say it! _ "

"I was scared!" he burst out. "Everyone was shoving everyone else! If I pushed her, it wasn't on purpose!" He sucked in a breath as if trying to draw the words back in, but it was too late. He had said them. "You can't resent me for surviving," he muttered. "If I were dead, you'd be mourning me. Maybe you'd even vow never to love another."

"But you're not dead," she said quietly. "Rose is."

He snapped his mouth shut, stricken dumb. His eyes were haunted, his skin ashy pale. He looked like he hadn't slept since the fire, either. She felt an unwelcome twinge of pity for him, but she bit it back. After a moment, he turned and strode away.

Alice walked shakily back into the house. She felt as tired as if she'd run a kilometer. Her father was waiting for her in the foyer. She told him she'd sent Julien away. All she wanted to do was lie down and never get up. But her father looked at her unhappily.

"We need to talk," he said curtly. He led her into his study, made her sit down. "I wish I had a choice, but I don't. I think you're old enough to hear what I have to say. I… was given bad advice for my investments. My paper's on the brink of bankruptcy. If something doesn't change within two months, we'll have to sell the house and everything in it, and move out. Marguerite's governess, Paul's tutors— all the domestic staff who rely upon us for employment— all will have to be let go. The only thing that can save us at this point is your marriage to Julien. He is wealthy; he loves you; he cares for this family, and will help us."

Alice stared at him in disbelief. She had risen to her feet and was backing away. "You would sacrifice me for money?"

"I wouldn't ask it of you if I weren't completely certain you will be happy with him."

Julien, tossing Rose out of the way— her father, throwing her at Julien— they were just the same. Was that all women existed for? To insulate men from the consequences of their own mistakes? Alice could not hide the disgust she felt for her father. She had never respected him less. She swept from the room without another word.


	4. Chapter 4

On Monday was Rose's funeral. Nearly all the house servants were present, and Rose's elderly parents. Alice stood by the gravesite, staring down at the pine coffin in a daze. Rose as in there. Her Rose. Jean standing near, looked as if he had been bludgeoned. He seemed barely able to stand.

"It was nice of you to come, Mademoiselle Alice." He fought to get the words out.

"Rose was my friend."

"In a couple days, we were supposed to go to America," he said. 

This was a shock. "I didn't know—"

"She put off telling you for fear of hurting you. She was so fond of you."

"I was fond of her, too. I am sorry Jean. I'm so sorry."

Jean and his parents-in-law went back in a hired coach; he had not driven today. Alice took a separate cab, on a whim getting out at the Trémoille estate just up the road from her house. She knew that Odette had been badly injured in the fire, but had survived. Perhaps she wouldn't want visitors yet, but at least Alice could let her friend know she had not been forgotten.

Alice had heard rumors of the terrible mutilation Odette had suffered, but still she was not quite prepared for the change in her friend. Odette had been a famous beauty, widely known for her pale blue eyes and her raven curls. She had been a social butterfly, too, charming in conversation and unendingly witty.

The Odette that greeted Alice now was a hollow husk of her former self. She barely spoke, and when she did her voice came out as a broken whisper. Her hair was gone, and wrappings of light silk concealed the wreckage of her skin. Sallow red corrugations disfigured the left half of her face. But she was alive. Even burned, even maimed, she was alive, and so was her child.

"You may not be aware," Rose said hesitantly, "but Rose did not survive. We buried her today. I thought you would want to know because it was she who got Thomas out. She wasn't as lucky as us." 

Odette let out a sob and collapsed in a chair. She could not lift her eyes. Alice crouched down before her, and moved to take her uninjured hand; but Odette flinched, and Alice did not try again.

"I thought about you during the ceremony. I can't even begin to imagine the suffering you must be enduring. But you are alive, and so is Thomas. He needs you; you will get to see him grow up. You must cling to that. It is a good thing, even if it is the only good thing left."

"Alice…" Odette wept. She lifted the veil from her face. "Look at me."

Alice stared. For a single, earth-shattering moment, with the sun behind Odette blinding her, she thought her friend looked just like Rose. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from crying. She must not burden Odette with such a thought, not when she was in such pain already. 

"I will always be here for you," she vowed, her voice wavering. "I will help you— in any way I can."

"Please, leave me," begged Odette. "Please."

Alice left.

The whole ride home, she agonized. She had just told Odette she must hold on, if only for her son. She felt that this was right, that the vulnerable should be protected by the strong.

So how could she let Marguerite and Paul be thrown from their home, when she had a way to save them? If it had been only her, she would have had not the slightest misgiving about letting her father fall on his own sword. She had been very well educated, and could find work of some kind. She had survived a fire that had claimed hundreds. She could survive being poor.

But her brother and sister were so young, still. They had not had her education, and were too young to work in any case. What would become of them if she did not marry Julien? How would they scrape by? And what about all the families who depended on wages paid by her father? Not just the Jeansins' household staff, but the people who worked at his printing press, the journalists, the newsboys. The life that until a week ago had seemed perfectly secure now revealed itself to be a house of cards. It was indecent that all these people should depend so heavily upon one human, fallible man. It was indecent that he should be allowed to ruin so many lives.

But the system could not be changed at this late stage, only the outcome. Alice could save them. Even if all she could do was build a scaffold under a collapsing structure, was it not worth doing, when so many livelihoods were on the line? Had not Victor been willing to sacrifice himself to save the lives of people he did not even know? How could Alice benefit from his sacrifice, and then turn around and refuse to do the same?

She could do it. She must do it. But she would do it with her eyes open.

She had made her decision by the time the carriage pulled up outside her gate. But she almost lost it as she alighted, because just across the street, Victor was waiting for her. She knew him before he noticed her. She knew him by the slant of his shoulders and the length of his legs and the one dark, quizzical eyebrow that would not stay down. How was it possible he had been in her life for less than a week, when his form was imprinted so powerfully on her mind? It sent a thrill through her to see him, even now, having made up her mind that she must give him up.

He stood on the sidewalk and let her come to him. He was happy to see her; his whole being shone with it, he could not dampen his smile. Alice smiled sorrowfully back.

"How did you find me?" 

He licked his lips. "It wasn't hard. All I had to do was look."

She took another step toward him. Just one step, that was all she could afford. Any more and she would lose her resolve.

"We can't see each other anymore," she made herself say. 

"Because of your fiance?"

"Yes."

He shifted, looking up the street. "You don't love him," he said finally.

"No." She could not lie. Not to Victor. 

"Do you respect him at least? Is he a good man?"

"No. He is a nothing man. The best thing that can be said of him is that he is accidentally good. But he's rich, and my father…" 

Victor was scowling at the ground. "Then let your father marry him," he said angrily. He took her hand, here in the street, in front of everyone; and she let him. He pulled her with him behind a notice board so they could not be seen from the house. His hands were so much bigger than hers, rough and used to hard work. She let her fingers intertangle with his, felt his thumb trace the contour of her palm. Dear God, he was not making this easy.

"I don't have a choice," she explained. "This isn't about just me. If I break it off, it will hurt everyone. I wish I were free, but I'm not." 

"If you want me to leave you alone, I'll accept it. I won't fight you. But you have to say it. You have to look me in the eye and say it." His hand curved familiarly around the back of her neck. She closed her eyes, relishing these last precious seconds with him. She knew what she must say, and she couldn't say it. She had not the strength.

"Meet me in the park," she said with an effort. "Tomorrow. To say goodbye." She drew away from him, every millimeter a struggle. She turned and walked resolutely across the street.

"Don't let yourself be sold," he called after her. "You deserve so much more."

She closed her heart against the sound of his voice, and walked on.

* * *

Julien was in the house. He had come to meet with Papa and his other Conservative friends. Alice waited for their meeting to end. Her mother plucked at her sleeve, insisting that whatever she had to say could wait, that she had time still to think on what she wanted to do. But Alice ignored her, and went into the foyer where Julien stood talking with her father. They looked up as she approached. She hoped she hadn't made her nose red by crying. She hoped she could make Julien believe she had been crying over him.

"I'm sorry, Julien," she said before he could speak. "For the other day. I spoke out of turn." He stared at her, not sure what to think. Her lip trembled, and he relented. He put his arms around her, relieved at the reestablishment of normality.

"I forgive you, Alice."

* * *

Julien was invited to dinner, after which he and Alice had a long talk in the drawing room. Or rather, he talked and she listened. He alluded only once to "the disagreement" between them, and afterward spoke enthusiastically about the life they would have together, starting as soon as possible. Before leaving, he kissed her, very cautiously. She kissed him back and felt nothing, not even anger. In submitting, she had conquered her rage. Julien was as good as a stranger to her now. He had become a blank sheet of paper.

Her mother came to ready her for bed.

"You're sure you want to go through with this?" she asked, brushing her daughter's hair. Alice nodded mutely. "We will have to begin preparations, my love. You will need a trousseau, and…" She paused, uncomfortable with what she must say. "We should engage a lady's maid for you. Louise can make a recommendation, or if there is anyone you want in particular from among our staff…"

"Whoever Louise recommends will be fine, I'm sure. Can you leave me alone, Maman? I'm very tired."

"Of course. Good night, sweetheart."

In the morning, Alice put on her riding habit before she went down to breakfast. Her father was at the table, reading a paper. He looked up at her, surprised to see her out of her room so early. He offered her a seat beside him. 

"Thank you, Papa, but I must make an early start if I want to fit in a ride today. There is a great deal to be done."

"Surely you still must eat?"

"If you want." She sat beside her father and picked at an orange. 

Her father shifted uneasily in his chair. "So you and Julien have made up, I understand?"

"Yes. He said he would come and talk to you today."

He looked at her listless face, her fingers shredding her orange to pulp. "This will all be for the best, my love. He will take good care of you."

"I know that, Papa." She forced herself to smile. "Soon this will all be in the past. I really should be starting my ride, I have so much to do today."

As before, she gave her attendant more money than he could possibly spend on coffee, then rode into the Bois alone. 

Victor was waiting for her in the same place as before, though he had taken shelter from the wind in the lee of an old ruin a little out of the way. Alice turned her horse off the path and dismounted by herself. Victor did not offer to touch her.

"Did you mean what you said yesterday?" he asked. He looked like he had slept as little as she had herself. His hair, never very tidy to begin with, was a disheveled mess. There were dark circles under his eyes, and his mouth was set in a hard line. The bandage was hanging off his hand again. He looked like he had tried to wrap it blindfolded.

"Yes. I have to do this."

"You don't. No one has the right to force you." He moved closer, and her heart stuttered; but he was only brushing past her. He would leave, and she would never see him again.

"Wait." She grabbed his coat and held him there. Victor looked down at her, blue eyes unendurably soft, and waited for her to make up her mind. If she must spend the rest of her life being bedded by Julien de la Ferté, then she would take what she could now, before it was too late. She stood up on her toes and pressed her lips pleadingly to his. He waited only for the span of a heartbeat before returning her kiss, his hands cradling the sides of her face. When she pulled away he remained still, as if afraid to move; but she took his hand and led him over to the ruin nearby, an ancient monastery cellar that offered a modicum of shelter and a thin beam of sunlight.

They kissed voraciously, parting only long enough to get their clothes out of the way. Alice had never expected her first time to be a frantic grappling on the ground in a semi-public place; she had never expected that she would be unmarried, too wary of discovery to get fully undressed. This was an act not of wifely duty or even of girlish romance, but of desperate, immediate need. She unbuttoned her shirtwaist and corset cover with trembling fingers, enough for her breasts to spill out inviting Victor's lips and tongue. The feeling of his hands under her petticoats, surprisingly gentle for all their bigness and coarseness, sent a charge through her that set her hair on end. They lay down on her coat, the closest thing they had to a bed.

"I don't know what to do," she confessed, although indeed there was a growing warmth between her legs that gave her some very direct hints.

"I do," he said, grinning, and kissed his way up her legs, from the tops of her ankle boots to the border of her silk stockings above her knees. He burrowed under her voluminous skirts, forging a path of fire with his tongue. Reaching down she felt the broadness of his back and shoulders through the scanty linen of his shirt, the fine hair at the nape of his neck.

His fingers grazed across the light brown curls at the joining of her thighs, then slipped into the warm wet rift between. Alice gasped, her hips lifting off the ground at the sensation. He slid two fingers knuckle-deep inside her, teasing her with the thumb of the same hand. She writhed wantonly under his touch, feeling more exposed than she ever had in her life and welcoming it. She could not have borne for anyone but him to see her so laid bare; but this was Victor, to whom she was bound by some power beyond herself. She wanted him, and him alone, to witness her unravelling.

He pushed her legs apart, his hands firm on her thighs, and knelt between them. He fingered her steadily, without tiring, stroking her lower belly and upper thighs with his left hand while the right carried her closer and closer to climax. When at last it overtook her, she stuffed her fist in her mouth, wary of crying out in this echoing grotto. But she could not stop her hips from bucking frantically as wave after wave of pleasure crested over her. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and she clutched desperately at his arms until the overlapping sensations subsided into a warm, fading throb. When she came to herself again, she saw that she had dug little half-moons into his forearms with her nails. He gazed up at her, his fingers still inside, and planted a small kiss on her mons before letting go of her.

"That's only ever happened to me in my sleep," Alice admitted. 

"Really?"

"Yes. And it was never so sharp, then."

"You're beautiful. That was beautiful." He ran his fingers through her hair, still damp from being inside her. He kissed the corner of her mouth; she turned and caught his lips.

"You're beautiful, too," she whispered. He laughed at this, but she meant it. She kissed the tip of his long nose and the freckles under his eyes. She counted his eyelashes and smoothed her forefinger over the eyebrow that would not stay level with its mate. She slipped her tongue into his mouth; he tasted delicious. 

Her blood was rising again. She reached between them to unbuckle his belt, but he hesitated. "You're about to get married," he said. "Are you sure you want to do this?"

"God will forgive me," she said impatiently. "If He doesn't, I will find another to worship."

He knelt and positioned himself between her outspread legs. For an instant he still hesitated, but she hooked her feet around his backside and pulled, and he sank inside her with a groan. She was filled with an exquisite tightness that she wanted never to end. He reached down and cupped her rear in his hand, kneading and lifting it to adjust the angle at which he pierced her. Alice reached down and rubbed herself as he had done a moment before, finding that she was able to strike a perfectly harmonious balance between his movements and her own. He watched her face attentively, waiting; it was only when she began to be carried away a second time that he let go, and came inside her with a yell he barely managed to choke back.

They lay there together several minutes, kissing lazily, gazing into each other's eyes. Alice licked the sweat from Victor's neck, and traced slow circles on his back with the lightest pressure of her fingernails. She must not linger here; how long had it been? But she almost could not bear to tear herself from his arms, wrapped around her so tightly. It was agony to stand and button herself up, and stuff her hair back under her hat. Victor vanished back into his many coats, wincing as he pushed his left hand through the sleeves.

"Let me see that," said Alice, leading him back out into the light. He submitted to her care obediently, allowing her to remove the bandage— the same one he had been wearing since the hospital, she was absolutely certain of it— and prod gently at the skin around the burn. It was not healing at all; it looked sickly and inflamed. She frowned and tossed the filthy scrap onto the ground. She reached down and fished under her skirts until she had hold of one of her petticoats; this she worried with her hands until she had torn off a segment of a ruffle, long enough to serve as a bandage. She wrapped his hand carefully, and then tucked a couple of clean handkerchiefs in his shirt pocket. "Wash your hand with soap and hot water," she instructed, "then soak a clean cloth in white spirits and place that over it. It will sting, but it will help keep it clean. After that you must re-wrap it using these hankies as padding. If you let it go on like this much longer, you're going to lose the hand. Victor, are you even listening?" He was kissing her neck, one arm snaking around her waist.

"Wash it and pour vodka on it," he recited. "Whatever you say."

"You promise?"

He grinned at her cheekily, showing teeth. "I like when you worry over me," he teased. "It shows you care."

"Of course I care, idiot," she said affectionately. "I have to go. Do everything just like I said."

"How soon can I see you again?" he asked. 

Alice bit her lip. "This was supposed to be goodbye," she said unhappily.

Victor leaned in and nipped very gently at the skin below her ear. "And is it?" he whispered, his hand sneaking inside her coat and sliding up her back.

"My God, when you touch me— no, no, it's not goodbye. I have to go, Victor. I'll be very busy for a while, but I'll try to ride here every morning. I'll look for you. Come as often as you can."

He tossed her up onto her horse, which had wandered back over as soon as it saw its mistress again. She stooped to kiss him one last time.

"Swear you'll think of me when you're with him," he commanded.

"I swear it. Goodbye, Victor."


	5. Chapter 5

Julien was already at the house when she got back. He complimented her radiant beauty and kissed her glowing cheek. She smiled but did not see him. Then her mother swept her away to consult with her dressmaker on her trousseau. In a few weeks would be the official engagement party— anything sooner would be seen as tasteless in light of the tragedy at the _Bazaar—_ followed by the wedding not long after, and an immediate honeymoon to Italy.

Julien was at the house constantly. If he was not meeting with her father, he was walking in the garden with Alice, or sitting with her in the drawing room while she and her mother went over lists of things to be done. After a few days of this, Alice resumed her daily ride, going out earlier in the morning before Julien had a chance to stake a claim on her company. Every morning, she gave Georges money for coffee, which he pocketed without looking at it or asking any questions. She had to assume he knew she was getting up to _something_ in the park every morning, although all she ever said about it was that she wished to exercise her horse especially hard, an excuse he impassively accepted. It was a risk to involve him, but she was unmarried still and under her parents' eye. She could not go out alone. She had always been an avid horsewoman, though, and her new riding schedule raised no eyebrows at home.

She met Victor by the ruin. Alice tethered her horse in a stand of beeches out of the way, and it grazed contentedly until she came back for it. In the dark place under the earth, they devoured each other. The more she had him, the more her appetite grew. His body— lean, tall, a little slant-shouldered from his constant manual labor— was the most desirable thing in the world to her. Unperfumed, washed only with a rag and a basin, marked with a constellation of scars going back to his childhood, she found him honestly beautiful. As their trysts continued and she grew bolder, she dared to do things to him she had not even guessed were a part of the conjugal act. The first time she brought him off with her lips around his member, she took almost as much pleasure in the act as he did, and was able to finish herself off with her fingers only a few seconds after. 

She begged him to bite and bruise her. He resisted at first, wary of causing her pain; but she was not afraid of him, and knew that even in causing her pain he could never hurt her. He left trails of deep purple along her thighs and buttocks and the undersides of her breasts. At home, while she stood being measured and pinned and basted, she would press surreptitiously at her bruises and feel an answering rush of wetness between her legs.

On occasion the path was too much travelled for them to meet in their usual place, and they slunk into the beech woods for which the Plaine des Hêtres was named. More than once they made love pressed up against a tree, the bark scraping Alice through the thin linen of her riding blouse. One time he even reached under her skirt where she sat in the saddle and fingered her to climax without her ever dismounting.

There came three days in a row when he did not appear, and she rode the Plaine des Hêtres for almost an hour alone before turning back in frustration. On the fourth day, he was waiting for her as she had prayed he would be, cheeks reddened by the wind, eyes smoldering. He pulled her off her horse before it had even dropped to a walk and dragged her under the ruin.

"Oh, did you miss me?" she asked with pretend unconcern.

"I could barely walk." He bent her over a block of mossy stone, threw her mass of skirts up over her back, and plunged his whole length into her in one sharp movement. Alice, sopping wet and aching for this, grunted in animal pleasure. She angled her rear upward, meeting him on every frantic thrust, her backside slapping lasciviously against his narrow hips. He came so hard it spilled out of her, dripping down her thigh as he pulled out. Barely a minute later, still breathless with exertion and lust, he flipped her over and fucked her again, this time holding out until she saw stars.

They made love until her legs shook and her cunt was sore and gushing. She could have gone another hundred times before she was satisfied, but she was already late for a fitting.

"It's just clothes," he complained, burying his face in her hair. "I'm sure everything will fit fine, you always look nice. Stay for five more minutes."

"I can't. My time is not my own." She held his face in her hands, loving the rough stubble of his cheeks, the fading scar on his nose, the untidy bush of his hair. "Every moment I am with him, my heart is with you. I will never belong to him, my love. I will always be yours."

But he shook his head. "No. No, you are mine only as long as we choose each other. I could never own you; I would never want to. You belong to yourself."

She kissed him and rode back toward loyal, discreet Georges, and thought about what he had said. She did not want to be owned by him, exactly; but she wanted to belong to him. She knew that such sentiments made him wary: he had a mutualist streak that made him hate the idea of any one person owning too much. Almost the first thing she had known about him was that he was, as he put it, a "grassroots redistributor". He stole from the conspicuously wealthy and sold his takings to a fence. More than the income, he took a kind of philosophical pride in this activity. Stealing right under the noses of the upper crust was practically its own reward. She might have wondered if she was another expensive jewel stolen from the undeserving pocket of a bourgeois pig; but she could not really believe something so cynical. 

His thieving was in addition to more honest work that paid less, but what he did with the money from either hustle she could not begin to guess. He certainly did not spend it on himself. He was an expert at getting around Paris for free, hitching rides on trams and "borrowing" bicycles off the street. He still wore the jacket that had been damaged in the fire, though it had since been neatly mended. She wondered who had sewn the patch on, who had replaced the charred cuff. It wasn't him, that was certain. He was exceptionally good with his hands, but he couldn't sew a stitch. Another woman? Another lover? It would be perfectly in character for him to have love enough for more than one person, but he had told her he wanted no one else but her, and she believed him.

He continued to choose her, despite the risk. For her part, loving him was no longer a choice, if indeed it ever had been.

Her mother descended on her as soon as she came into the house. "I wish you would keep a closer eye on the hour," she said sternly. "Madame Durand has been here twenty minutes already. Look at you, you're barely fit to be seen."

"I rode farther than I realized," said Alice, bowing her head penitently. "I'm sorry, Maman. I should have been more mindful of the time."

"Come, come, she's waiting in your room. You don't have time to bathe, just hurry up there. I'll be in in a few minutes."

Alice ran up the stairs to her room. Madame Durand gave her a civil nod, her eagle eyes taking in at once Alice's hair badly mussed under her hat, her mis-buttoned riding apron, her coat hanging open.

"I'll just change," Alice said weakly, going into the bathroom. Stuffing her fist in her mouth to keep from laughing, she wiggled out of her clothes. Victor had left a fresh bite on her breast, which she had better get under cover before Maman came in. She used her sweat-soaked chemise to wipe between her legs, although if experience had taught her anything she would be leaking all day.

She got into a fresh chemise and the blue-and-white embroidered corset that had been specially made for the wedding, and went out to have Madame Durand tighten the strings. Then it was on with the delicate corset-cover, gartered stockings, several fine petticoats and finally the wedding dress. Madame Durand checked the hem, the fit of the bodice and sleeves, the length of the train. Maman had come in by this time, and watched Madame Durand take notes with her pearl-handled pencil.

"A perfect fit," Madame Durand declared. "It will need to be checked on the day before the wedding, to adjust for any small fluctuation to weight caused by nerves."

"Thank you, Madame Durand," Maman enthused. "You've worked a miracle, and in such a short time; I cannot adequately express our satisfaction."

"I am honored by your patronage," said Madame Durand. "If you'll excuse me, I will leave you to get out of the dress by yourself; I have another appointment which I would rather not be late for."

"Of course."

Maman bade Alice stay in her wedding dress while she saw Madame Durand out. Alice let out the breath she had been holding in. She wanted to go off in a gale of laughter. It all seemed so funny. She had not meant to linger so long with Victor, and she knew she should be more careful— but he had been inexhaustible this morning, generous yet demanding, consumed by his desire for her. It had unlocked an answering passion in herself that even now was far from satisfied. She shifted her weight, felt her thighs sticking together, and grinned.

"It's been a long while since I've seen you look so happy," her mother said, coming back into the room with something in her hands. "I've missed your smile more than you can know."

"What's that you're holding, Maman?" 

"Your veil," Maman said softly. "Let's try it on now, while you're dressed."

Alice closed her eyes, trying to hold on to the good mood Victor had put her in; but her mother had turned introspective, and wanted to talk about unpleasant things.

"When your father and I were married, we barely knew each other." She pinned the veil carefully to the cluster of curls drooping low on Alice's neck. "But with time, we learnt to love one another."

"Julien isn't a stranger, Maman. I've known him half my life." 

"Yes. He is an old friend. And he cares very much for you."

"Yes, Maman."

"One more thing, my darling. Your wedding night…" Alice stared at her, startled. Maman's face was very pale, and she looked down at her hands, twisting her wedding ring on her finger. 

"Maman?"

"It will be dedicated to God."

Her good mood evaporated. She had known all along she was going to have to sleep with Julien. Of course she knew that. She could not live in this dreamlike in-between forever. But she was afraid of it ending. To sleep with Julien whenever he wanted, to hide her true feelings from him forever— 

And Victor. How would she see him after she was married? She could not give him up. It was not just the lovemaking which she craved every hour of every day. It was the way they talked to each other, the way he listened, his innate sense of the human right to live free. She knew that his life was materially a struggle, that he lived in constant danger of hunger, of violence, of injury and sickness and death. The neighborhood where he lived was raided weekly by the police. They rarely if ever had a warrant: they were just sweeping the area for petty thieves and political dissidents, of which Victor was both. He showed up once at the Bois with a spreading black bruise on his side where he'd been kicked by the heavy boot of a gendarme during a routine raid. He also appeared with cuts and scrapes from ordinary altercations with other people in his neighborhood. He might imagine an ideal world, but he had to live in the real one.

Despite his hardships, he still believed it was possible to create a more egalitarian France. One in which humane housing and worthwhile employment were rights, not privileges. He loathed the stratification of the university system. He himself was not very highly educated, but he was broadly-read and articulate. He believed that the state in its current form existed to protect property rather than people; Alice's own situation was a stark example of the ways in which this was true even at the higher echelons. When she raged at him over the unfairness of her position, he did not tell her she was imagining it or— as would have been only fair— point out that she still benefitted greatly from that position, in the form of freedom from toil. She did feel some shame for complaining about her gilded cage to a man whose cage was made of iron spikes. But he encouraged her anger, which he agreed was just, and did not throw her wealth back in her face. 

It wasn't her wealth, anyway. It was her father's, and he had gambled it away. Upon marrying, her wealth would be her husband's. She could not be said to independently own much more property than Victor did himself, although she was allowed to be surrounded by it. If not for the deal with Julien, she would have had to work. She was more than willing to do this, but the kind of work available to even a gentlewoman was dauntingly limited. As a working woman, she would have less independence than she had now: governesses, nannies and domestic servants had practically no control over their day-to-day lives, and little time off. Rose had not chosen to go to _Le Bazar de la Charité_ , she had gone because that was where her mistress wanted to go. She missed Rose as a friend, but could two people truly be said to be friends when only one held all the power?

The closest thing she would ever get to true autonomy was, ironically, marriage. If she was lucky, her union with Julien would prove a spacious prison cell."Darling?" Maman was saying. "Don't be afraid, my dear. Julien will be very gentle with you, I'm sure. And the procedure will improve with time and familiarity."

"I'm sure it will," agreed Alice.

"You look beautiful," said Papa from the doorway, a newspaper tucked under his arm. She nodded stiffly at him, and he pressed her shoulder instead of kissing her on the cheek. They had not returned to their former easiness in the weeks since the tragedy. "I wanted to tell you personally, Alice," he said in a low voice. "They know who started the fire. It was an attack of terrorism. The bomber was an anarchist. He won't get far."

"What… what anarchist?" Alice asked, snatching the paper from her father. She stared at the front page, but she could not take in a word. Just below the headline was printed a mugshot a few inches tall. It was grainy and hard to make out, but there was no mistaking the long nose, the dark eyes, the one eyebrow perpetually raised higher than the other.

"'Victor Minville," her mother read over her shoulder. "'A well-known anarchist of obscure birth and low society, reputed to be part-German'—"

"They're sure it's him?" Alice interrupted.

"Yes. He was seen at the Bazaar just before the bomb went off." Her father took her hand in both his own. "He'll be found, convicted and guillotined. I promise."

"Justice at last," said her mother, beginning to cry. "For all those women, for Adrienne…"

Her parents continued talking, but their voices seemed muffled and faraway. She could not get air. Smoke was filling her vision, smoke and burning ash, and Rose was burning—

The ceiling fell away and all the world went black.

* * *

Alice came to in her bed, a vial of sal volatile wafting under her nose. She gasped and sat up: her parents hovered over her, and a handful of servants.

"Clear the room," her mother ordered. "You too, Auguste. She has had a shock. Let us give her space."

"Give me the paper, Papa." He hesitated. "I won't faint again, I promise."

Maman nodded, and her father handed the paper to her and closed the door behind him. She read the article while her mother undid the finicky pearl buttons that ran down the back of her wedding gown. They were sure it was him; his presence on the scene was all the proof needed. An additional horrifying detail was that Minville, a documented jewel thief, was also responsible for the theft of jewelry at the morgue which had caused the delay in identifying Aunt Adrienne's body. The mug shot was from a prior arrest for being found with stolen watches, for which he had served time and forced labor. 

Alice let her mother undress her, and then she drove her out of the room. She read the article four times: it really was not long, and mostly comprised a recounting of the tragedy at the Bazaar and a list of the dead. She stared at the photograph, trying to read the truth on his black-and-white face. It gave her nothing. She knew nothing.

No: not nothing. She knew he was a thief. He had never hidden it from her. Did he not take pride in it? And here was the arrest record. That much, at least, was true. When she found him fleeing the police at Beaujon Hospital, had his pockets been laden with dead women's jewels?

And he was an anarchist; she knew this without having to think about it. He wore his politics on his sleeve. He believed in the collective power of the proletariat, despised the bourgeoisie for its conspicuous consumption and its disregard for the working class, sought the abolition of wage slavery and capital punishment. These were all anarchist sentiments, but they were not damning on their own. Anarchy and pacifism were not inherently at odds with each other, although in practice….

Where did his beliefs end? Where did action begin? That bruise on his ribs: was that really a result of police brutality? Aice had been raised to respect the police, but she had believed Victor because she knew— she _thought_ him to be a scrupulously honest man. But why did she think that? How well did she know him, _really?_ He had enough hatred for the oppressive class to do _something_. But could he really have killed all those women?

She did not want to believe it. She was afraid to believe it. But she could not see clearly where he was concerned. Loving him, she was blinded by him. He had saved her life, it was true: but then, was it not possible, even likely, that he had simply had second thoughts when confronted by the enormity of his crime? Had he saved her to assuage his conscience?

And she had repaid him with the free and unrestricted use of her body. She had _thrown_ herself at him. Even now, she still carried a part of him inside her. She called for a basin of water, as hot as could be brought, and scrubbed herself until she was raw.

* * *

Alice did not go out riding the next day. Not that she would have expected to see him at the Bois. He was a hunted man with an unmistakable face. He would not be risking anything more for her. She met Julien in the parlor downstairs and spent the morning with him. He settled placidly in the chair by the fire and read the paper as usual. Alice could not stop glancing over at the face still staring out at her from the front page. She tried to work on her wedding wreath, but her hands shook too much. It was turning out horribly. She could not use her hands, she could not think, she was not good for anything. 

_Victor, Victor, did you do it?_ her mind cried out. _Did you kill those women? Was it you who caused them to die in such pain?_

Her wreath looked ridiculous. She strode over to the fire with it and pitched it in. Julien was watching her nervously.

"That one's beyond saving," she said, forcing a laugh. She kissed him on the cheek— he went back to his paper, assuaged— she made another attempt at a flower crown.

"Mademoiselle," said the butler quietly, offering her a letter on a silver plate. It was addressed to her but not to this house; it must have been hand-delivered. She tore it open, hands shaking more than ever.

 _I swear I am innocent_ , the letter read. _Meet me in the park. Please._

_I'll be waiting._

_Victor._

Her fingers traced the shape of the words, bold and black and slanted. She wanted him to be innocent. But when had wanting something ever made it so? She stood up, walked around to the fire again and pitched the letter in, envelope and all. She could not be found with it. He had signed his name to it. Why would he do such a thing? Did he not realize she was watched almost constantly, and could easily turn him into the police?

"Are you alright?" asked Julien behind her, his face drawn with concern. He took her hands, chafing them when he felt how cold they were. He seemed, in this moment, not the stranger he had become but the young man she had been friends with since she was a child. For that reason she did not lie or pretend that everything was normal.

"No. I'm not."

"What's wrong?"

"I feel… suffocated since the attack," she confessed miserably. "I just want to move on, to forget, and I can't. It never goes away."

"It will. It will pass." He drew her close and put his arms around her, and she let herself be comforted while the smell of burning paper filled the room.


	6. Chapter 6

Days passed in a fog. Alice drifted around the house like a ghost. Jean resigned his post, and the fog barely lifted long enough for Alice to bid him farewell. Then he was gone, and she had nothing to do but pass the hours until she could lie down and sleep. She thought about Victor incessantly. One minute he was guilty in her mind, and she was a fool for having been taken in by him. The next, he was blameless, a hero wrongfully accused. She did resume her daily ride, but her parents were so worried about her that they insisted she wait for Julien to accompany her. There was no chance of meeting with Victor under such circumstances, even if he was there waiting.

"Good night, Maman. Good night, Papa," she said a couple nights before her engagement party.

"Do you want me to send Louise with my drops?" Maman asked.

"No, thank you." She could not bear to be caught even more in a haze.

She let Louise get her ready for bed and lay down on her side, staring at the wall. It was hardest at night; that was when she thought of him most vividly. Her body ached to be touched by him. Her ears longed for the sound of his voice. Could she trust her own judgment? Was he the dangerous terrorist, or the rescuer who had risked his life to save people he didn't even know? Was he both?

She drifted in and out of sleep. Every rustle in the trees outside startled her awake. She should have taken those sleeping drops after all, but it was too late now. If she took them at this hour she would sleep until noon.

There was a rattle at the window. Alice's eyes popped open. The rattle continued.

"Alice! Open up."

Victor. Why had he come here, why had he taken such a risk? She threw off her blanket and stared at the shadow behind the curtain.

"Please, Alice. Let me in!"

She stood before the window, steeling herself. Could she trust herself to keep a clear head if she saw him again? But she couldn't leave him out there, hanging off the side of the house. She threw open the window and stepped back quickly, before he could touch her.

"I didn't do it," he said at once, dropping to the floor. "I didn't kill those women. Alice, I would never do something like that." He took a step toward her, but she moved back, wrapping her arms around her front. "Don't believe everything you read."

"You're a thief," she said. "You're an anarchist."

"Yeah, sure, but that doesn't make me a terrorist! It suits those Conservative crooks to have a scapegoat, but they have no proof. Because it _didn't happen_."

Dear God, he was so beautiful. He was so near.

"Why should I believe you?" she asked. Warily, but willing to be convinced.

"If I only went there to set off a bomb, why would I have hung around?" he asked desperately. "Why go back in when the fire started? Why would I risk coming here now? If I'm caught, they'll execute me. But I had to see you. I waited for you in the park, but you came with _him_. That man who was with you…"

"I couldn't get away," she said contritely. "I tried…"

"Don't think that what happened between us meant nothing," he said. "This isn't a game to me. I never imagined I'd fall in love with a woman like you, but I did. I don't want to give you up. Even though I know I should."

His whole body was inclined toward her, but he did not take one step. She knew that if she banished him now, she would never see him again. If she screamed for help he would never make it out of here. He was looking at her, waiting for her to decide.

She took a long, searching look at him, the face that had become so familiar to her, the hands that had held her so tenderly. She looked at him, and she knew. He had not done it. He was innocent. How could she have doubted him?

"Victor," she whispered. "Forgive me." He took her in his arms, his lips on hers, his hands tangling in her hair. She pushed him backward onto the bed and straddled him without breaking their kiss.

"I missed you," he murmured. "When I saw you with him—"

"Don't think about him," she begged. "He doesn't matter. No one matters to me but you." She ground herself against him and felt him grow hard. She fumbled open his belt and the fly of his pants, pulling them down. He gripped her rear firmly in his hands, guiding her onto him with a sharp intake of breath.

They moved together, intimate and safe. To be held by him, to hold him inside her— it removed all possibility of doubt. He was a good man and he was hers. She could not give him up.

He reached between them, shoved her bunched-up nightgown out of the way, and pushed her over the edge with his fingers. She was still trembling from it when he wrapped his arms around her and came, too, his face buried in her breast.

"Come away with me," he whispered. He looked up at her, blue eyes glowing green in the dim light from her lamp. "Escape from here and come away with me. This is our time to live."

She gazed at him, indecisive. She had never been more tempted. She wanted him; she wanted the life he offered, the ideal world he believed could be made a reality. She could not think beyond her own wanting.

"Alice?"

Her head whipped up. Her father was at the door. She yanked Victor to his feet and tugged her nightgown down over her bare legs.

"Yes?"

The door opened. "A man was seen in the garden, are you—" Her father threw the light switch and gaped at the wanted anarchist Victor Minville, who stood behind Alice still pulling up his pants.

"Out," her father growled, eyes popping. "Get out, _now_."

Victor was glaring at Alice's father as if he wanted to fight him. "Crooked, mercenary son of a—" he spat, but Alice slapped her hand over his mouth.

"Go, Victor. Please!" She pushed him toward the window, desperate that he should leave before something worse happened. He looked down at her, saw how afraid she was, and nodded. He climbed out the window without another word.

Her father strode past her and watched Victor climb down his drainpipe. Alice saw him land on the gravel, take a few steps and then pause to look back up at Auguste de Jeansin. He spat on the ground before running off into the night.

Her father closed and locked the windows. He turned to her, apoplectic with rage.

"Papa, let me explain—" she began, clutching her nightgown to her throat.

"Shut up," he barked. "There is nothing to explain."

"He saved my life," she insisted. "I'd be dead if not for him."

"What are you talking about?" he said, furious. "If not for him a hundred women would be alive, and you…" He gestured wildly at her bed, where visible evidence of their lovemaking soaked slowly into the blankets. He rubbed his hands down over his face.

"He says you have no proof," said Alice.

"That doesn't concern you. From this minute onward, think of your marriage and _nothing else_."

"I'm spending my life with a man I don't love to save my family," she said bitterly. "Because of _you_. Your bad investments, your—"

He slapped her across the face before she could finish. She raised her chin defiantly and did not drop her eyes.

"In two days you'll be betrothed," he said, looking suddenly old. "Till then, you will not leave this house. Nobody must know that this man has been in your bedroom. Nobody! Do you understand?"

She stared at him. In that moment, she very nearly hated him.

" _Do you understand_ , Alice?" He grabbed her by the shoulder, shaking her. "Answer me!"

Alice nodded slowly, eyes narrowing. "Yes, Père. I understand."

* * *

The situation could only be said to have gotten worse, but Alice felt she had been given a gift from God. She knew now that Victor was innocent. Her way forward might still be uncertain, but she knew that she could not let him be punished for a crime he had not committed. The next day she was obedient and complaisant, doing as she was told, eating what she was given to eat, meeting no one's eyes. She wrote one letter and sent it out with the morning mail. Perfectly unobjectionable behavior. Her father was still furious with her, but she would give him no reason to tighten the leash.

The morning after that, she woke early, dressed, and slipped out the side door. At the stables, Georges was not expecting her; she had sent no word, and her horse wasn't ready.

"I'm in a hurry today," she said breathlessly, checking over her shoulder. "Only saddle mine; I don't need an attendant today."

It felt like an hour but was only a few minutes before she was riding down the drive, keeping in the shadows of the trees in the hope of going unnoticed. She rode briskly to the Bois de Boulogne, and kicked her horse into a gallop as soon as she reached the Plaine des Hêtres. There was no possibility her absconsion had gone unnoticed; she prayed she would find him quickly, because there was no time to waste.

Thank God, he was waiting for her, keeping out of sight although he came over when he saw her coming. He ran his hand under her skirt, up her leg to just past the knee. Not lustfully, but from a pure desire to be touching her.

"I knew you would come," he breathed. "We can get away tonight, I have a friend at Le Boucan in Belleville who will help us—"

"That's not why I'm here," she interrupted. "I want to help prove you're innocent."

"To hell with that," he scowled. "We love each other. Now is our chance to be together. If we wait, it will be too late."

"That's not enough," she said. "How can you live free with this sentence hanging over your head? Is that not what you want more than anything? To live free?"

"I want _you_." His fingers grazed the bare skin of her leg above her stockings, sending a shameful thrill through her. She kneed her horse a few steps sideways, to put distance between them.

"If we run away together," she said urgently, " _now_ of all times, the whole world will decide you are guilty. You will be hunted all your life. We both will."

"I'll protect you, I swear—"

"It's not me I'm worried about! If we leave together, I won't be able to help you anymore. But if I stay, and if I stay _respectable_ —" He shook his head, a dangerous light coming into his eyes. "I can help you, Victor. I may not have much power but I have a little. I can use it to save you from this."

"No. No, no, no—" He was shaking his head. "Don't sell yourself. Not to them. Not for me."

"I would do much worse things for you, Victor. Listen to me: you have to lay low. Stay with someone you can trust, and I will get word to you as soon as I've—"

"Alice!"

 _Julien_. He had followed her. She had hoped to have more time. Alice cursed and turned her horse. "Get out of here, Victor. Don't come back to this place. If you stay here you'll be found. I have a plan, don't do anything until I send you word—"

"Is that him?" he asked, ignoring her words completely. He took a few angry steps toward Julien. "Is that your piece-of-shit fiance?"

"Stop! Just go. _Go!_ " She rode back toward Julien, heart hammering in her chest.

"Don't do this," Victor shouted after her. "Not for me. Not for anyone!"

"Who was that?" Julien asked when she rode up to him. He squinted past her at Victor, walking back toward the other end of the park.

"Someone who was lost," said Alice, forcing a careless smile. "Thank you for coming to find me. Shall we go?" She rode off in the opposite direction of Victor, and soon they were in another part of the park.

* * *

Her father almost fainted with relief when she returned with a smiling, talkative Julien. He hissed at her to get ready for the party, and went with Julien to greet their guests.

Alice did her best to appear as happy as a newly-engaged woman was supposed to be. She smiled, and held Julien's hand, and allowed him to kiss her whenever he wanted to. Marguerite and Paul played with the cousins, unaware that their elder sister's life was being twisted into a grotesquity before their eyes. It wasn't just for them, now. It was for Victor, too.

When an inspector with the police department arrived at the house in the middle of the party, Alice was the only one present who wasn't surprised.

"He wishes to speak with Mademoiselle Alice regarding the investigation into the fire," the butler murmured to her father.

"Not today!" he answered.

"I'll speak with him," said Alice quickly. Beside her, Julien looked surprised, then troubled; but she did not concern herself with him. Thank God that someone had come. She must make him listen to her. She followed him out to a side room, accompanied by her father and Julien.

Inspector Hennion first apologized for interrupting Alice's engagement party. "I'll get right to it," he said. "On the 4th of May, you were seen talking to this man, the suspected attacker." He handed Alice a photograph of Victor, the same as the one in the papers but clearer, the planes of his face easier to make out.

"Can't this wait?" her father cut in.

"No, the matter is too serious. It's claimed the man was a hero when the fire broke out. My source says he saved your life."

Alice could feel the rage radiating off her father. "It's true," she confirmed. "I'd be dead if not for him. Why save my life if his goal was to kill?" She looked directly at her father as she said this. His face had gone very red.

"A man who flees the police is a man who has done wrong," said Julien from the doorway.

"Not necessarily," she contradicted. "Wrongfully accused. He's right to be wary."

"You'll testify on his behalf?" asked Inspector Hennion.

"In public?" her father said, shocked. "Out of the question!"

"Under emergency legislation," said Hennion, "the man will be summarily executed, without a trial."

Alice looked from her bilious-faced father, to Julien who looked as though he had been smacked, to Inspector Hennion. "I want to testify," she said calmly.

"Thank you, Mademoiselle. I'll expect you at the station tomorrow to give a statement. Sorry for the inconvenience."

Julien stared at her. He waited for the others to leave the room. "Why didn't you tell me it was him who saved your life?" he asked tonelessly.

"What difference would it have made? You said you didn't care how I got out."

She walked past him, but he grabbed her arm. "You haven't forgiven me," he accused. "You're pretending. You'd rather testify on behalf of some anarchist than…"

"Than what?" she asked. "Than lie? I owe my life to him. I won't pretend otherwise."

"Have you considered the scandal? No, because you don't think about other people!"

" _All of this_ is for other people!" she snapped, gesturing around at the party decorations, the guests in the next room. 

He paled. "How far would you go for this man?"

"I'll do everything I can to save an innocent life. Let go of me, Julien." She twisted out of his grasp.

"Stop. Alice, I forbid you to go— stay with me!'

"You don't own me yet," she shot back. He was so stunned he let her go, and she ran out, heedless of the public eyes that followed her.


	7. Chapter 7

She had made a spectacle of herself. That wasn't good. It was such a fine needle Alice must thread, and it was important that she keep Julien happy. She should not have talked to him like that. He was not Victor, he did not respect her anger.

She went for a walk to cool down. Her feet carried her to the Trémoille estate almost before she knew where she was. Odette was sitting on a swing in the back garden, wrapped in crepe de chine robes and veiled with smoke-blue organza. She adjusted her veil when she saw Alice coming, to better hide her healing scars.

"Hello, Odette," said Alice.

"Hello, Alice."

"I'm so happy to see you outside," said Alice falteringly. "And we received your invitation to the party tomorrow night. How are you feeling?"

"I'm all right," said Odette. She looked at Alice keenly. "What's wrong?" she asked.

"Nothing— why should anything be wrong?" said Alice evasively.

Odette continued to look at her, her one remaining eyebrow lifting infinitesimally. Alice sighed. "I argued with Julien at our engagement lunch. He's probably back there looking like a lost little lamb. But I had to get some air for a moment. You don't mind that I came here?"

"I could never mind seeing you," said Odette fervently. "I missed you."

Alice smiled at her friend and leaned against the swing set. "I missed you, too. And Thomas— he must be so happy to have you up and about again."

"Yes, Thomas… He's a good boy. I am lucky to have him." Odette looked toward the house. "What was your argument about?"

"Victor Minville," said Alice. 

"The anarchist?" 

"Yes, he… he's being accused of planting a bomb at the _Bazaar_." Odette made a restless movement. "He didn't do it," Alice hastened to say. "I don't know who did, but it wasn't him. Not Victor. He saved my life. He is no terrorist."

Odette was looking at her peculiarly. "Have you seen him again?" she asked. She seemed… not suspicious, but curious. Alice decided to trust Odette, at least a little. She nodded.

"Everyone is blaming him. I'm trying to clear his name, but no one will listen to me. My father, Julien— they want me to keep my head down and not make waves, but I'm going to testify. I'll tell the truth in court, even if I'm hated for it."

"What makes them so sure it was a bomb?" asked Odette. 

"You know, I don't know."

"I thought it was…" Alice looked down at her friend, who was staring thoughtfully at the ground. "I was at the cinema before the explosion," she said. "I went to collect Thomas from Rose. A fire started in the projector booth. I saw a man trying to extinguish it. He failed and fled. I didn't see his face, but I suppose he must have been the projectionist."

"I heard my father say he was dead," said Alice, "but his body wasn't found. And yet— if he ran away, maybe he survived. But if he's alive why does he not speak up? Victor will be blamed for this; if they find him, they'll guillotine him. But if it was an accident—"

"Perhaps he feels responsible for what happened," Odette said softly. "Perhaps he's afraid that if he comes out of hiding, he'll be found guilty. Even if it _was_ an accident… "

"Odette," breathed Alice, taking her friend's hand. "Thank you for listening— I feel sometimes as if I must be going out of my mind, I'm so alone. Thank you, _thank you_ — I must go, dear, but I'll come back to see you."

"Of course," Odette said, tears slipping down her ruined cheeks. Alice kissed her hand and ran, heart hammering, back to the house.

Julien was coming out as Alice walked up. He looked grave in his black overcoat and hat. Grave but no longer furious. He had never been able to stay angry at her.

"Where did you go?" he asked.

"Just over to Odette's. I needed to talk to a friend."

He looked unhappy at this. "I'm sorry, Alice. It used to be that when you needed a friend, you came to _me_. We used to be close."

She looked at him, softening. He looked truly penitent. She gave him a small smile and took his hand.

"I shouldn't have reacted that way," he said remorsefully. "If this man saved you and is innocent, of course he should be defended. It was beneath me to suggest otherwise. You are my fiancée; I should be supporting you. And I am grateful to the man who brought you back to me."

"Oh, Julien," Alice said, going into his arms. This was the Julien she had always known, her kind-hearted friend. He held her, stroking her hair with his soft hands.

"The guests are still inside," he said. "Do you want to go back in?"

"After the shock I gave them, running off like that, I suppose I should try to smooth things over. Are my parents frantic?" She took his arm and talked with him back into the house. She was so grateful to have talked to Odette, so relieved to have a plan forming in her mind, that she could feel a happy glow warming her from the inside. And the cold, incurious Julien of the last month was gone— her old friend had been restored to her. They went back into the reception room and mingled with those guests who remained, who all grinned behind their hands, amused at the quarreling lovers' reconciliation. When the last guests left, Alice kissed Julien very softly on his lips, and he bid her farewell with a happy smile. 

"Your mother was distraught when you left," announced her father from the foyer.

"I'm sorry, Père. I was upset. I went over to Odette's."

"You're damn lucky Julien understands and forgives you," he said. "If he knew the extent of your depravity… and now your guilt has tainted me, too, because I must keep your secret. That you had _that man_ in your bedroom—"

"He never will know," said Alice quickly. She must not let him get in a temper again. She had too many things to do, which could not be done if he was hovering over her like an angry black crow. "Julien and I made it up. All is well." She kissed his cheek and turned to go.

"You really intend to testify on behalf of this terrorist?" 

"I'm sorry I made a scene, Papa. I'm very tired now; I should go to bed." Uneasily, he let her go.

Alice asked her mother to help her get ready for bed. She apologized for causing her distress, and then they talked about other things.

"Will you send Louise with sleeping drops, Maman?" she asked as her mother was turning out the light. "I'm so tired, but my mind will not settle."

"Of course, my love. Good night."

Alice waited for Louise to bring her a tray with milk and sleeping drops, which she poured out the window. Then she put on a simple, dark-colored afternoon dress, last year's autumn coat, and a hat that covered up her pale hair. She put some money in a purse which she looped around her wrist, waited for the last lights downstairs to go out, and crept out the side door, praying not to be noticed.

No one stopped her as she ran swiftly down the drive to the gate, which she slipped through silently. She walked briskly down the walk to the corner and hailed a cab. 

"Where to, Mademoiselle?"

"Le Boucan. In Belleville."

* * *

The cabbie had to ask directions once he reached Belleville, but eventually dropped her off in front of a dilapidated cabaret in what must have been the dingiest street in the district. Her pulse was pounding; Alice had never been in a place like this in her life, but she was too anxious about Victor to be afraid of the looks she was getting from the cabaret's patrons.

The interior of Le Boucan was noisy and boisterous. A musician performed popular songs, couples danced and dallied— perfectly ordinary behavior in a cabaret. But there were serious faces among the revelers, too.

"A Republic that keeps its women in a situation of inferiority cannot pride itself on calling all men equal!" one woman declared. "We are in the census, but we have no vote! How can women vote, I have heard it asked, without an educated mind? Would our votes not be like the votes of children? Easy— give us access to the universities, let us debate in public spaces. Pay us fairly for our work— I work harder than any Conservative pig who sits behind a desk and pushes other people's money around!" Alice had paused, her attention caught. The woman noticed her, her eyes drifting down from the top of her velvet hat to the toes of her polished boots. Alice shifted uneasily. The woman stood up. She passed her hand across the fur collar of Alice's coat, and expertly unbuttoned the top button one-handed. "No one is safe from a corrupt system, whatever she may think. Every woman can be… _liberated_."

Alice smiled shyly, bowing her head. The other woman laughed and returned to her table. 

"You look as if you belong here," said Victor over her shoulder. She spun around, flushing at the sight of him.

"I feel out of place," she admitted.

"How can you be," he said, "when you feel as we do? It's our beliefs that unite us. And our humanity." His face had inclined to hers; she did as she had been longing to do for weeks and kissed him in front of everyone, owning her love for him publicly. The anarchist woman raised her glass to Alice with an arch grin.

Victor had been unbuttoning her coat this whole time, and now his hand crept in around her waist. He pulled her against his body. "Dance with me," he murmured.

She had come here for a purpose; she shouldn't let herself be distracted. But he pulled her into a clear space among other dancing couples, and she found herself leaning against him as he whirled her around. He was so unutterably lovely, his smile lighting up the room, his laughter musical and deep. Alice could not help but laugh herself, to hear it. For the span of a single song, she let herself feel joy.

The song ended. Victor wanted to dance another; but Alice stopped him. "I know what happened at the Bazaar," she said quietly. He went still, eyes riveted to her face. "It wasn't an attack."

He looked around them, then took her hand and brought her through a door at the back of the hall. He led her into an alley that reeked of urine and other effusions and pulled her into an unoccupied doorway along a wall plastered with peeling, ancient bulletins.

"Before the explosion," she said quietly, "a fire started in the projectionist's booth. My friend saw it. She survived, but she was terribly hurt; I don't think she's even been reading the newspapers. She seemed surprised that anyone was being accused of planting a bomb. She saw the projectionist trying to extinguish the flames, but when they grew out of control, he ran away."

"The projectionist— you mean Michel Bisset?" said Victor. "But I know him. I set up the booths with him, and we've worked together on other jobs. He lives near the abattoir. Or he did."

"There's a chance he survived. You must find him and talk to him," she urged. "He can testify. He can help us clear your name."

He was looking at her so softly she couldn't breathe. He cupped her face in his hands, his thumb grazing her cheek. He kissed her, his tongue slipping into her mouth, tasting faintly of beer. Alice melted against his body, helpless in the face of her desire for him. 

"Come up to my room," he whispered.

"I should go…" she said, indecisive. "I had to sneak out just to come here, I shouldn't linger…" He kissed her neck, his tongue flicking delicately into her ear, and her knees went weak. "If we're quick," she said, succumbing. He held her hand and led her back inside, past the cabaret's revelers, up a set of back stairs and into a room the size of a closet with one creaking iron-frame bed. She didn't care who saw. She didn't care about anything but getting him undressed as quickly as possible. 

They ripped the clothes from each other's bodies, flinging shirts and shoes in a pile on the floor. They had never seen each other completely nude before, so wary were they of being caught in the semi-public place where they trysted. But now Alice saw him naked, angular and lean, a worker's body. She dropped to her knees before him, feeling the length of his erection with her palms. She took his velvety hardness into her mouth, swirling her tongue around the tip before sucking it into the back of her throat.

" _Fuck_ , Alice," he moaned, his fingers digging through her hair, pulling it out of its braid so it fell in waves around her face. She sucked on him hungrily, stroking him with her spit-slickened hands every time she pulled back, letting her throat relax so that she could take in the whole length of him without choking. She pumped him with her mouth until saliva shone on her chin and glistened in droplets in his pubic hair; then, doubling over and bucking against her lips, he spurted down her throat.

"Fuck, Alice," he said again, barely audible, and collapsed on the bed gasping for breath. He held his hand out to her and she fell onto the bed beside him. "You're incredible," he muttered, eyes screwed closed. He pressed her against his heaving chest, skin to skin.

Alice watched him slowly recover, taking pleasure in the sight of his face as it gradually relaxed. She traced his nose with the tip of her finger, from the curve where it descended from his eyebrows, past the bump that still showed a scar from the fire, down to the pointy little tip. She traced his cupid's bow; he kissed her fingertips as they passed. 

Without opening his eyes, he reached around and began stroking her slick cunt from behind, lazily at first, teasing her. A frown of concentration appeared between those dark brows and he dug two fingers inside her, followed by a third. He moved her so that she was lying across his stomach, legs splayed, buttocks in the air, perfectly placed for him to manipulate her with his hands. He pleasured her with slow, deep strokes of his long fingers, slowly building in speed and intensity until she was gasping and writhing over him. He swiped the thumb of his other hand across her clitoris, firm but not rough, and a whole world of sensation coalesced between her legs, emanating outward to the tips of her fingers and toes. She buried her face in his sheets to silence her cries of pleasure, and fell limp across his body.

Victor scooped her into his arms, scooting over so that he lay against the wall with her back pressed against his front. His breath tickled the hairs on her neck, warm and comforting. The fingers of his left hand played lazily across her breasts, teasing the hardening nipples, then drifted down the length of her stomach to her mons. She reached behind her to take his half-cocked manhood in her hand, rubbing it against the wetness of her cleft. He moaned in her ear, bucking gently against her backside. Soon he was hard again, enough for her to slip him inside her from behind. He fucked her languorously, neither of them feeling much need to race toward a second climax. She exulted in every inch as he pumped slowly in and out of her, rubbing herself in time to his movements. His room was cold enough for the heat of his hands to be welcome on her skin.

Alice had slipped outside of space and time; she had no knowledge of how many minutes or hours passed like this, and no desire to know. It was a long while before they finally pulled each other over the edge. Alice's orgasm was mild but unending, the low rolling waves of it supporting her for what seemed an eternity; his, when he attained it, was much more powerful and brief.

Eventually Victor had to get up to urinate in a pot in the corner, legs splayed, leaning on one hand against the dingy whitewashed wall. Alice watched him, fascinated by the mundane act. He pulled on his pants, then sniffed his underarm and winced. Alice laughed out loud, gleeful and relaxed.

"I have to bathe," he said, "but the water's downstairs. Do you want to come with me, get something to eat?"

She was going to say no, but sitting up made her light-headed, so she nodded instead. She dressed in just her skirt and chemise, forgoing the bodice and dragging her fingers through her hair in lieu of a comb and brush. Victor grabbed a bucket from the corner and brought her downstairs to the common room that had grown noticeably more rowdy. A clock on the wall showed two in the morning. He led her to the end of the long oak bar.

"Janvier," he greeted the middle-aged man behind the bar. "Do we have any bread left?"

"Sure," said Janvier, staring openly at Alice. He put a chunk of brown bread and half a wheel of cheese directly on the countertop. "This her?" he grunted.

"This is Alice," said Victor. "Alice, this is Janvier. He raised me."

"I tried," said Janvier. 

"I'm going to grab some water from the kitchen," said Victor. "Keep each other company, will you?" He kissed Alice on the cheek and disappeared down a door into the basement, patting Janvier's shoulder as he sidled past.

"Hell of a rock you've got there." Janvier nodded at the engagement ring sparkling on her finger. Alice flushed and twisted the ring so the diamond pressed against her palm.

"It's payment," she said stiffly.

"Payment? For what?"

"For justice."

Janvier looked at Alice in silence a moment, then took a deep draught from an abandoned cup on the bar. He leaned against the countertop so they could talk without raising their voices and said, "Why don't you go ahead and explain to me exactly what you mean by that?"

Alice braided her fingers together, not sure how much to say. "You know what Victor's up against," she said quietly.

"Yes. I do know."

"The man who gave me this ring is grateful to Victor for saving my life and delivering me back to the bosom of my family. So grateful, in fact, that he is willing to indulge me when I say I will testify about what really happened at the Bazaar. My connection with him pleases my father, too. As you can imagine, if that connection is severed, neither my father nor my fiance will have any reason to care what happens to Victor. And I need them to care, because no one will listen to me alone."

Janvier looked at her with cautious sympathy, broke off a piece of cheese and chewed it thoughtfully. "This isn't going to work the way you think it is, girlie."

"It's the only way I know how to do this," she said helplessly.

Janvier sighed heavily. "I keep trying to get the idiot to leave Paris. Or at least lie low. He's twenty-three, he thinks he's immortal. If you really want to help, you'll get him to skip town tonight."

Victor stomped back up the basement stairs, his bucket sloshing water all over the floor. "Come on, Alice, let's go. You mind grabbing the food?"

Alice ducked her head politely at Janvier and gathered up the bread and cheese. 

"Wait," Janvier said, and handed her a half-empty bottle of wine from behind the bar. "You might as well be happy now. Tomorrow'll be here sooner than you think."

"Thank you, Janvier," said Alice, smiling shyly at him. She followed Victor back up to his room.

Victor cleared off an upturned tin tub he had been using as a desk and set it up in the corner. He gave her first use, handing her a cleanish cloth that had been drying on a rack by the window and a bowl of coarse soap. He draped her coat over the drying-rack to form a kind of privacy screen. She wet the rag and wiped between her legs, then soaped up and washed her face and hands and underarms. She pulled her chemise on over her head before stepping chastely out from behind her screen.

"Go ahead and eat," he said, "you're falling down. I'll be done in a minute."

Alice sat cross-legged on the bed and ate a piece of bread with cheese, then rinsed it down with wine. Victor, finishing his ablutions, dumped the befouled water unceremoniously out the window and hung the rag back on the rack to dry. He pulled on his pants and sat with Alice on the bed, tucking in to the food Janvier had given them. His left hand, freshly washed and out of its bandage, looked worlds better than it had before, the raised scar no longer oozing or inflamed.

"How long have you lived here?" asked Alice. The room was small and not overcrowded with clutter, though there was evidence of Victor's personality in the books on the desk, the clothes hung on hooks on the wall, the papers and writing supplies scattered across the small work table. And the bed. The bed smelled like him.

"Since I was little," he said. "My mother and I moved here from Germany when I was barely walking. She was a singer; she performed almost every night." He pointed to a poster on the wall, a tricolor print of a beautiful woman with a pointed nose and one eyebrow raised. _Eva Schaff, Voice of Gold_. "Usually we lived in a couple of rented rooms. Then she got involved with someone who wanted to keep her in a hotel uptown. He didn't like her son hanging around, so she asked Janvier to look after me. She still came by to visit as much as she could, but it was different not seeing her every day."

There was a scratching at the door. Victor unfolded himself from the bed and went to let in a ginger-striped cat, who rubbed chirruping against his legs before it noticed the intruder and froze. Victor laughed and scooped the cat into his arms, snuggling his face against its fur. He nudged the door shut with his toe and came back to the bed. 

"She died when I was eight, and Janvier just kept looking after me. That's why I took his last name. I don't know who my father is, but it might as well be him." He was watching Alice closely, gauging her reaction. She should have found the tale unsavory, but in fact it didn't really change anything. It was him she loved, not his pedigree. 

She held a crumb of cheese out to the cat, who glared at her balefully before deciding it wanted the treat more than it distrusted her. It snatched it out of her hand and ran under the bed to devour it.

"Miette's the best mouser in Belleville," Victor said indulgently, watching the cat's twitching tail which had not quite made it under cover. "I'm her favorite, because I give the best scratches. Although she likes to lose her mind in the middle of the night and wake me up chasing ghosts."

Alice laughed happily, but her laugh was intercut by a yawn. Victor shook the crumbs off the blanket and lay down, holding out his arms for Alice.

"I should go..." she said.

"What if you stayed?" He smiled sleepily, still reaching for her, and she decided she could stay a _little_ longer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading so far! If you like the story, I'd love a review. We're a little past the halfway point; shit's really about to hit the fan.


	8. Chapter 8

Miette did indeed wake her up an hour later, howling malignantly at the moon. Alice had not even meant to fall asleep, and was grateful to be roused. But with Victor slumbering beside her, his head resting on his arm because he had given Alice the pillow, she could not quite find the will to get up and creep home. She got up and used the chamber pot, rinsed the sleep out of her mouth with a swig of water from the bottle on the desk. She sat back down and watched Victor sleeping. A minute. A minute and she would go. Miette batted curiously at the foot she had let hang over the side of the bed.

Victor shifted beside her, light and shadow from the window sliding across his face. Alice leaned over and kissed his sleep-warmed cheek, very softly so as not to wake him. But he must not have been sleeping very deeply because he smiled with his eyes still closed and slid his hand up her thigh, under her chemise. 

"I should get going," she whispered.

"There won't be any more cabs until dawn," he pointed out. "Unless you were going to walk all the way uptown. Stay. Stay until the sun comes up."

"Yes. I'll stay until then."

He tossed the covers off and pulled her on top of him. "I know this isn't what you're used to, but it's not a bad life." He moved his hands up her hips and waist. "Of course you don't want to run away and leave your family. It was too much to ask, I know that. But what if we find Bisset? What if all this trouble with the police goes away? I would do whatever I had to, in order to support you. We would take care of each other."

"How would we do that? I don't want to live in fear of the day you don't come home to me because you got caught with your hand in the wrong pocket."

"I would give that up," he said earnestly. "I've already thought it out. I would help Janvier run Le Boucan. He's been on me to stay and help ever since his old business partner got deported. It's been hard on him, running things alone. He has a natural son, my brother, but Jacques could never do it. He's too hot-headed, he doesn't know how to control himself." Alice thought of Victor spitting on the ground while he stared down Auguste de Jeansin from the driveway, and bit back a laugh. Victor was the _level-headed_ brother? "At one time or another I've done just about every job that goes into running a place like this. Sooner or later I know I'll end up doing what Janvier wants."

"If Janvier wants you to stay and help so much, why haven't you?" 

"Didn't want to be tied down. But I'm starting to see the appeal." He caught her hand and pressed a kiss to the palm. "Even just two years ago this place looked a lot different. Cleaner, less rats. I could get it nice again. All it takes is work. Sometimes work is drudgery, I won't pretend otherwise. But sometimes, when it's work you believe in, it becomes something else. I can't promise you an easy life, but we could have a life filled with purpose."

"It's a beautiful dream," she acknowledged. 

"It doesn't have to be a dream," he said. "It's not impossible. The people who live here are like family; we look out for each other. We're free to speak our minds. And we get interesting artists, great singers, dancers— there's always something going on. You'd never be bored. Marry Julien and you'll be bored every day of your life."

"Julien's not here right now," she said, leaving a trail of kisses along his collarbone. "It's just you and me."

He tucked her hair behind her ear and made her look at him in the yellow glow from the streetlamp outside. "But he's always there in the background, isn't he?" he said unhappily. "A threat. Not just to me, but to you, too. To be trapped in a marriage where you are not equals— it will kill you inside, Alice. You will have to let your heart die, just to survive."

"Maybe. But I'm alive now," she said, biting gently at his earlobe. 

"You're trying to distract me," he accused. But his hands slid up underneath her chemise to palm her breasts.

"Yes," she agreed, grinding her rear against the growing bulge in his underclothes. She pulled his pants off and threw them on the floor where Miette pounced on them, thinking they were for her. Alice licked languidly at his member, feeling it grow hard in her mouth. She smiled and moved away, teasing him, kissing his ribs one by one, letting her hair sweep loosely over his skin. He reached down to finger her with one hand while with the other he stroked himself.

Alice climbed on top of Victor and slid him inside of her, riding him rhythmically. She pulled her chemise over her head and tossed it aside. She ran her hands slowly up her body, caressing her breasts until the nipples grew pointed. She leaned back on one hand, playing with herself, giving him a show. Only after she had finished herself off in front of him did she allow him his release, riding him in time to her own pulsating aftershocks.

He swept her into his arms, cuddling her close to him. He cradled her head against his chest and pulled the blanket up over them both. She had never felt so safe.

* * *

Alice woke with the sun on her face.

"Shit!" she yelped, scrambling upright. She and Victor were scrunched to one side of the single-occupant bed; Miette took up the other half.

Victor sat up, rubbing his hands over his face. "I'm going to go see Michel Bisset. You coming?"

She stared at him in disbelief. "Is that a joke?"

"If it were, it wouldn't be a very funny one." He bounded out of bed and shook the cat hair off his clothes, dressing quickly. He pissed in the pot while Alice scrambled into her clothes. She had no idea what time it was, but it was _definitely_ past sunrise.

"I'll never make it in without being caught," she moaned. She lifted her skirts out of the way and squatted over the pot, which was beginning to be very full. "They must already know I'm gone. Oh, and Julien is coming to sign the papers today…"

"Maybe he won't sign them," said Victor hopefully. "If we can find Michel Bisset, you won't have to testify at all, and your fiance can go to hell."

She hunted futilely for a comb among his things. "You said you know where to look for Monsieur Bisset?"

"Yes. It's not very far from here."

Alice considered. "All right," she said, deciding. "We'll see if he's there. Then I'll go see Hennion; he wanted me to give a statement today. When my parents ask, I'll say I was there all morning."

"Hennion?" repeated Victor, surprised. "Why were you talking to him?"

"I sent a letter to the police department a couple days ago, saying I could vouch for you. He came to my engagement party yesterday and asked if I would testify. Why, do you know him?"

"Yeah, I know him," said Victor, looking away. "He keeps telling me I should dodge town."

"If so many people think so, maybe it's true," she said gently. 

"Come with me and I'll go right now."

Alice threw up her hands. "Why are you so stubborn?" she huffed, exasperated.

"Probably because I'm right."

Shaking her head, Alice put on her coat and went down with Victor. The common room was dark, stools neatly stacked on top of tables, the floor swept and mopped. Outside, the morning sun was bright. Alice guessed it might be seven o'clock already. 

The abattoir was a fifteen minute walk away, in a district that stank of animal foulness. Victor pointed out Michel Bisset's flat and waited around a corner from it, where they could watch the front door without being observed. It felt like an age but was probably no more than twenty minutes before Bisset emerged from the flat. Victor waited till he was within reach and then stepped out into his path. Bisset jumped, recognized Victor's face, and turned to run. But Victor grabbed him by the collar and dragged him into an alley, restraining him against a wall.

"Hey, hey, go easy on him!" Alice exclaimed.

"Don't you read the papers?" Victor snarled at Bisset. "You could have said something!"

"I— I can't— !" Michel wailed.

"It was the projector, wasn't it?" Victor gave him a shake. "The fire started in your booth, and you ran away and let me take the heat. Why haven't you told anyone? At least you would get a trial; if they pick me up I won't even get that!"

"I can't risk it— I can't—"

"So much for _fraternité_ ," Victor spat. "I thought you were one of us; you _acted_ like you were. We would have protected you." Bisset was standing limp, his face a mask of misery. "Say something, damn it!"

"I couldn't see anything," Michel grunted. "I had to refill the projector lamp, but I couldn't see shit in that hole. I lit a match so I could watch what I was doing, and the ether vapors caught fire. I tried to put it out, but everything in the damn place was flammable. Once it started spreading there wasn't anything I could do. It wasn't my fault. I warned the organiser when we were setting up, but he didn't listen. There was no light, no ventilation— that place was a goddamned tinderbox!"

Alice stared at Michel, frozen with horror. Her father had been one of the organisers. It was he who had been in charge of the cinema booth. His pride and joy, into which he had poured vast sums of money, and he wouldn't even spring for a window. And now… hundreds dead and wounded. He was as guilty as if he'd set a bomb himself.

"I can't sleep anymore," Michel wailed, slumping into Victor's arms. "I hear them screaming at night. I close my eyes and I see the flames."

Victor patted him roughly on the shoulder, looking over at Alice. "Beat it," he said to Michel. "Keep your mouth shut about this. Not a word to anyone."

"Victor, he has to make a statement," argued Alice. "You can't let him go."

"You want him to make a statement against your father?" said Victor, raking his fingers through his hair.

"Mademoiselle de Jeansin." Michel seemed to notice Alice at last. "I remember you. Your father— your father killed all those women."

"I'm going to see Inspector Hennion right now," said Alice, moving toward him. "Come with me. _Please_."

Michel shook his head, backing away. When Victor did not move to stop him, he turned and ran down the alley.

"You just let him go," breathed Alice. "Victor, we need him to testify—"

"What good will it do?" he said bitterly. "Bisset may be a coward but I won't just trade my life for his."

"You don't have to. It was an accident! They won't execute him for something that was an accident!"

"Won't they? For it to have been an accident on Michel's part, someone else has to be culpable. Either they blame the well-connected, bourgeois organiser who set up the booth, or they blame the projectionist with anarchist ties who can't afford a lawyer. How do you think this goes if he confesses? The guy's got four kids and a dying brother. It's not a fair trade."

"We have to try," she begged. "If Papa were willing to testify, too…"

"You try. In my experience, you can't teach morality to a pig."

Alice felt dizzy. She put her hand out, feeling the roughness of the brick wall, struggling to maintain her senses. "I have to go home," she said faintly. "I have to talk to Papa. I have to… Dear God, I have to do _something_." It was all falling apart. Just last night she'd been so happy, sure that an end to this nightmare was in sight. Why must he pick _now_ of all times to turn cynic?

He walked her to a corner where she could catch a cab. By the time she'd given directions to the driver, Victor had already vanished.

* * *

She had left last night with every intention of sneaking back in before anyone noticed she was gone. Instead here she was bursting into the house at ten in the morning, in rumpled clothes covered in orange cat fur, with her hair hanging all over her face and her boots half falling off because she couldn't find a button hook. Disgrace billowed after her visibly, but there was nothing she could do about it. She would have to take whatever trouble came; it was more important that she make her father listen to her than that she save face.

She found him in his study upstairs. He looked up at her as she came in, and his eyes bugged out of his head. She didn't wait for him to yell at her before speaking.

"Papa," she said, "the fire at the Bazaar started at the cinema."

"What are you talking about?" he said, uncomprehending.

"The projectionist confessed," she said quickly. "The cinematograph lamp ran out of ether and he couldn't see to refill it. He struck a match to see what he was doing and some rags caught fire."

Papa's face had gone deathly pale. He sat down heavily in his desk chair.

"The cinematograph," he repeated. "My booth. Your aunt Adrienne…"

Alice knelt beside him, taking his hand, trying to make him look at her. "It was an accident," she said. "A terrible accident. Papa, you have to tell the police. You have connections, you have lawyers, you'll be able to clear your name. Victor can't fight this like you can. You have to tell the truth or else he'll be executed." Her father looked at her sharply, but she pressed on, determined to say her piece. "If you make a statement in support of the projectionist's confession, I'll marry Julien. I'll do whatever you want. All I ask is that you testify."

"Yes… yes," said her father, looking bludgeoned. "Go to your mother, she's been out of her mind since she found you gone. I have to go, I have a meeting…"

Alice nodded and went up to her mother's parlor on the second floor. Maman sat staring out the window on the back garden, lap full of untouched embroidery.

"Maman."

Her mother leapt to her feet and rushed to take Alice in her arms. She embraced her, stroking her hair, for a long minute before holding her out at arms' length to look her over.

"Dear God, Alice, where have you _been?_ You look as if you fell in a river."

"I feel as if I fell in a river," she admitted.

"You frightened us all. I thought you had been kidnapped. But I will yell at you later. First, you must have a bath. Come, come, you will use my tub."

Alice wanted to weep. But she didn't. She submitted meekly to her mother's ministrations, letting herself be undressed and lowered into a hot bath. Maman hissed with sympathy at the fading bruises on Alice's body, but she did not say anything about them directly. All she said was, "Julien didn't come this morning to sign the papers."

" _What?_ Why?"

"We don't know; he didn't send word. And Camille appeared on our doorstep, and then Marc-Antoine came to fetch her home. She had run away from him; there was a scene. You missed a lot."

"I'm sorry, Maman. I had to…"

"Had to what?'

Alice was not sure how much to say. But her mother was looking at her sympathetically, and in any case it could hardly get any worse for her now. "I know how the fire started. It was in the projectionist's booth, at the cinema. It wasn't a bomb at all."

Her mother sat on her stool beside the tub, unmoving. She seemed frozen.

"I snuck out to find the projectionist. He's alive, Maman. He lives in the 19th arrondissement. But he won't confess. He's afraid of what will happen to him if he does."

"You went to the 19th arrondissement _alone_?" her mother gasped. "Alice, you could have been… were you hurt? Were you… insulted in any way?"

She was looking at the bruises again. Alice stood up and quickly hid them underneath a towel. "No, Maman. I was alright. No one tried anything."

Her mother toweled her off and put her own dressing gown over her shoulders, then made Alice sit at her vanity. She stood behind her, brushing her hair as she had done when she was small. It made Alice want to cry, to be cared for so.

"Did you see… _him?_ That anarchist?" Alice looked down at her hands and did not answer. "Alice, what is your connection with that man? What aren't you telling me?"

"He rescued me from the fire, Maman. He risked his life for me, when I was only a stranger he had no reason to care for. Now he is being blamed for setting a bomb which never existed. Even my own family, Julien— everyone blames him. But I only came back to you alive because of him."

This seemed to have some effect. Maman brushed her hair smooth and then began to pin it up, fluffing the pieces out to give it volume. "My love, you are so honest… but not everyone else is. How sure are you that this story is true? If the projectionist is in collusion with that anarchist—"

"It's true, Maman. And Victor _did_ rescue me from the fire. I did not imagine that."

"I know. I know you didn't. It's just… very hard to know what to believe."

"Pardon me, Maman, but it's not. I know exactly what to believe. The truth is not a secret, but it is being suppressed. If Papa comes forward in support, this can all go away. I know you think I have been running wild, and maybe I have. But if I had only been listened to in the beginning, it would not have come to this."

Her mother pinned the last curl in place and helped her up. "I know your father talked to you about his finances. I wish he hadn't; I did not want that placed on your shoulders. But now you know how it is for this family. I am afraid for you. It is our job as parents to protect you, but it is becoming harder and harder to do so. And when you go off on your own like this—"

"Lock me up if you want," said Alice flatly. "But know that if you do I _will_ find a way to escape, and this time I won't come back." Her mother flinched, and did not try to follow her out of the room.


	9. Chapter 9

Alice played with Paul and Marguerite in the nursery. Dolls and puzzles, word games— until not very long ago she had had nothing to do with her time but play and amuse herself as they did. They did not know the family was on the brink of financial ruin. They did not know their sister was in disgrace, a reckless wanton carrying on an affair with a fugitive. They were children, these things were kept from them. Would it be pleasant to go back to being free from care and responsibility? Alice could not say. She had had little to trouble her before now, but she had known that something was missing, even if she could not have said what. Her mother was in her forties, and she too was kept in the dark; but this did not seem to make her very happy. No, it was not preferable to be kept in ignorance. She would rather move through the world with her eyes open.

After lunch Alice paced her room by herself. She was not out of options yet. Odette and her husband were throwing that party tonight; Alice would try to find a way to talk to her there. Odette and Alice had always been friends of convenience, neighbors who happened to rather like each other. But in their last interaction Alice had sensed… _something_ , an openness, a desire for connection. At any rate, she had seemed sympathetic to her plight, and might be willing to testify even if Bisset did not. Between Odette and her father… The police had only a very weak case against Victor, and the evidence in support of his innocence was mounting. There were witnesses, testimonies. It was not over yet.

"We're ruined, Alice." Her father stood in the doorway, his face gray. "Julien saw you with that man at the anarchist cabaret."

"Julien followed me?" she said, dumbfounded.

"Or had you followed. He no longer trusts you. And he is right not to: he saw you with him. He would not say what it was he saw, but I gather it was damning." He looked at her, a flare of anger in his eyes. "How could you, Alice? You could not control yourself for even one night, knowing what is at stake—"

"I went there to tell Victor about Monsieur Bisset."

"And stayed all night! In that den of iniquity, far from home, unprotected! You are lost to all sense of virtue; you have abandoned your ties to God and family, preferring to dally with some dirty _anarchist_ —"

"Because with him I am listened to! With him I am safe!"

"You aren't safe anywhere, anymore!" he shouted. " _Your family_ kept you safe. _Julien_ kept you safe. You threw your virtue in the dirt with both hands, and no respectable man will ever look at you again. Julien does not want you. I don't know if I can protect you anymore. I have never been so ashamed. You disgust me." He seemed really unable to look at her.

"I disgust _you?"_ she spat. "What are my sins in comparison with yours?"

"Enough!" her father roared. "He's being arrested today. They will find him at Le Boucan. They'll guillotine him, and that will be the end of it."

Alice took a step closer, clutching her father's hand. "You didn't say anything? I told you about the projector, you have to tell them— Papa, you can't let this happen." He raised his chin, but she saw shame in his eyes. He was a small, weak man. He would not help her. Sickened by his inertia, she made for the door. He tried to prevent her leaving the room, but she slapped him across the face, an act that startled her almost as much as him. It was enough; his hand went to his reddened cheek, and he let her escape without interference.

She went to the stables and made Georges get her horse ready. She did not wait for him to escort her; there was not time, and her reputation was beyond saving anyway. She threw a hat with a veil on her head and pulled the netting down over her face, the closest she could get to anonymity as she rode alone toward Belleville. She remembered the route, she had been paying attention in the cab last night. But it was so far. All the way on the other side of Paris. 

She got there too late. The raid was already over; people Alice recognised from the previous night were being bundled onto police trucks while bystanders hurled abuse at the gendarmerie. Victor was among them, kicking and shouting at his captor but unable to free himself. She screamed his name but did not know if he saw her before the door slammed in his face and he was taken away.

Alice still had the card Inspector Hennion had left with her; she had not made her statement yet. She must do it now, before this went any further. But the streets were clogged and difficult to maneuver, and by the time she had reached police headquarters the situation had deteriorated materially. She asked at the front desk to see Inspector Hennion, and was told he had been arrested. She bit back a scream of rage and went back out. The day was fading; there was no time. Her options were dwindling. What power remained to her? Was there anything left she could do?

The catastrophe at the Bazaar had not ended when the last flame was extinguished. The fire had been only the match and the newspapers had been the tinder, igniting public outrage. She knew a little of how the prints worked. They ran their presses overnight so that the papers could be ready in the morning. It was only the afternoon now; there might be time to get her story to one publication or another. She could give an interview. Not to her father's paper; it had to be another, one to which she had no connection. There must be no doubt that she was telling the truth. _La Chouette_ was a little leftist but still considered well within the bounds of respectability. It was widely read and she knew where it was headquartered; she would go there.

She gained an audience with Monsieur Dubois the editor, who heard her story with increasing agitation.

"Mademoiselle de Jeansin, was it?" he said when she had finished. "Are you in any way connected with Monsieur Auguste de Jeansin, who owns _La Gazette?_ "

Alice nodded. "He's my father."

"Pardon the impertinence," he said, "but why not run this story at your father's paper? Why come to me?"

"Because there is no time," she said, holding her head up. "Monsieur Minville has already been arrested; they will not hold him long. I don't have time to convince my father to run a story that he fears will expose his eldest daughter to scandal. It must run at once. Besides… it was my father who financed the cinema booth where the fire started. You must see why I cannot go to him."

Monsieur Dubois considered her, consulting a ream of papers on his desk. He handed a note to his assistant in silence, then lit a cigar and chewed on it thoughtfully, leaning back in his chair. "I admit your tale does fill in a few gaps in a story I am putting together," he said. "But perhaps you are not prepared for what it may mean if I run this interview. In order for your testimony to have any impact, you will have to sign your name to it. And it may implicate others in your social circle, including your father and several others in high places. Are you really prepared for the outcome?"

"I'll sign it," she promised. "I won't back down. Ever since the fire I have been trying to tell what happened, and it has seemed as if my words were swallowed up by a void. All I want is to make the truth public. This tragedy had a cause, and if the cause is not corrected it will happen again. Victor Minville is a hero; his scapegoating is abhorrent. He is being made to pay for the mistakes of more powerful men. If he is executed without a fair trial it will be an unforgivable failure of justice."

Monsieur Dubois nodded, scribbling on a sheet of paper while she spoke. Then he asked her to wait while he conferred with his copywriters, and after that she must answer more questions. It was almost eight o'clock before they were done with her, and she could stagger exhaustedly home. She was so tired. She wanted to sleep for a million years, but even if she lay down she knew her mind would not let her rest.

She left the horse with Georges and went inside. Few lights were on; in the dark, her mother sat on the carpeted stairs in an evening gown, twisting her hands. Waiting.

"Maman."

"Your father told me everything about this anarchist," her mother said quietly. She stood and walked down the stairs to Alice. "I know it how much it must pain you, but I think he's right. You are a good and honest girl; the fault was not yours in being taken in. But you must acknowledge reality. Let justice run its course. Mourn him, if you must. But forget him."

Justice. That word again, which had no meaning at all in this world. "He saved my life, Maman," she whispered.

"He also caused the deaths of over a hundred people. Whatever debt you think you owe him for your life, consider it paid with Rose's." Alice bit her lip, holding on to the bannister for support. "Talk to me, Alice. _Please_."

"I did talk to you," she said drearily. "I told you what happened at the Bazaar. I have done nothing but talk since this began. You at least might have listened to me. I won't talk anymore." She brushed past her mother and went to bed.

* * *

In the morning she sent a footman out to buy a copy of _La Chouette_ from the corner. "Buy two," she said. "Give one to my father."

"But your father reads _La Gazette_ —"

"I know. Today he will read _La Chouette_."

" _Cinematograph Projector Causes Fire,_ " the headline read. Alice's testimony was prominently featured. Her uncle Lenverpré was implicated, as well, in connection with the sudden death of the projectionist Jean Bisset. She had not known about that, but could barely muster any surprise when she read it. The author of the article had a definite slant, presenting the fire as an accident caused by negligence followed by a conspiratorial cover-up. But it did not seem _too_ incredible. Some of her father's Conservative friends took this paper, it was not quite fringe. Maybe it would have some effect. 

She braided and pinned up her hair and went down to the breakfast table where her father was reading the article, his wife scanning it over his shoulder. They both looked up when Alice came in. They had never looked so betrayed.

"Do you have any idea what you've done?" her father demanded.

"It's nothing personal, Papa."

"You might have thought of your brother and sister, if you won't think of us!" said Maman. "All this to shield some terrorist you're infatuated with!"

"Victor isn't a terrorist," said Alice hotly.

"Enough!" her mother yelled. "This isn't about money anymore. You've dragged our family's name through the mud! Now we look like sympathizers!"

"Tell her the truth," said Alice, spinning on her father. He looked helplessly from his wife to his daughter. "It was an accident, you know it was. _Tell her!_ "

Maman looked to her husband, waiting for him to contradict it. But the silence stretched out. "Auguste?" she whispered. He didn't answer her; he couldn't even meet her eyes. With a broken-off sob, Maman slammed the paper down on the breakfast table. She took Alice by the hand and swept her away upstairs.

"My daughter," she moaned, leaning against Alice's bedroom door and covering her face with her hands. "This is a mess. I don't know what's going to come of this."

"Neither do I," said Alice. "But I had to do something. No one would _listen_ to me."

"Your father has always kept things from me," said Maman. She sat on the bed, her shoulders slumping. "But he was never very good at it. I can tell when he is concealing something important. When he told me that man had been to the house— to this room— I thought that must be the secret he was hiding." She stared bleakly at the bedspread, neatly smoothed now by housemaids and quite innocent-looking. "Tell me honestly, my love, and I promise I will believe you, whatever you say: did that man force himself on you?"

Alice let out a helpless little laugh. "No, Maman. He did not force himself on me."

"Did he pressure you? Perhaps you felt so grateful to him for saving your life you did not feel you could deny him?"

Alice sat down too, next to her mother. She folded her hands in her lap. "He did not ask me for anything I was not happy to give," she said quietly. 

Maman hid her face in her hands. "How long?" she asked despairingly. "How long have you been seeing him?"

"Since the day after the fire," admitted Alice. "Maman, you must understand something. The night he pulled me from the flames, he brought me to a restaurant across the street and made sure I was safe. But then he went back. He _ran back to the fire_. He wanted to see if there was anyone else left alive. I saw him go; I tried to follow. I could not think of anything but that my savior was about to die, and I could not prevent him. I would have run back into the fire, too, but someone held me back." Her mother's shoulders shook; she was silently crying, tears dripping from her chin onto her linen blouse.

"I was sure he had perished. But then— he was at the Beaujon when I went with Jean to look for Rose. I recognized him right away. I prayed to God, thanking Him for sparing this man's life, for allowing him to see another sunrise. I told Victor where to find me. Not at the house. We met in the park."

"All those early-morning rides…" groaned Maman.

"It was just to talk," said Alice at once. "But then… when Papa told me I had to marry Julien or ruin the family, I did not want to talk anymore. It wasn't even his idea. He was ready to let me go; _I_ was the one who started it. I am sorry that bad things are happening to this family, but I did not cause them. And I'm not sorry that I fell in love with Victor. He is a good man, Maman. I am _right_ to love him."

Maman put her arms around Alice and kissed her brow. They lay down together on top of the blankets. Maman stroked Alice's hair until, worn out, Alice fell asleep.

She woke with Maman gone, a knitted blanket draped over her. She sat up, rubbed her eyes, and looked at the clock on the desk. She had slept for three hours. She drank some water and sat at her vanity with _La Chouette_ open before her. She read every word twice. She held the cut-out copy of Victor's mugshot, dingy and indistinct now from being handled. The article mentioned where he was being held, and where he would be executed if a pardon did not come through in time. The guillotine was already being set up.

"Your statement was pointless," said her father, opening the door without knocking. "Your uncle has destroyed the evidence."

"He has no right!" she said furiously.

"Of course he does. He has power, contacts, money, and he's rescuing us from bankruptcy." He had the decency, at least, to look ashamed. "Without Julien, I had no choice but to apply to him. But his assistance comes with strings attached."

"So did Julien's," spat Alice. "But you didn't care as long as you weren't the one on the end of those strings—"

"Enough," he interrupted. "Accept responsibility for your actions. Make a retraction or we are destroyed. And this time there will be no one left to bail us out."

"You talk to me of responsibility? _You?_ "

He looked very much as if he wanted to slap her again; but he had learned his lesson the first time. Instead he left, slamming the door behind her. She heard a key turn in the lock. They had never locked her in before, and she did not have a copy of the key. She rattled the doorknob anyway, slamming her fists against the sky-blue door. "Papa! Let me out! You're going to get him killed! Papa! _Maman!_ " But no one answered, and no one came.

* * *

She screamed until she was hoarse. She lay down and dozed fitfully in her clothes. She woke before the sun and pounded on her door again. She paced back and forth, back and forth.

At sunrise her father came back holding a sheet of paper filled with his own writing.

"What's that?" she asked suspiciously.

"A retraction. You'll sign it."

"I won't."

"Then I'll sign it."

"And do what?" she said nastily. "Run it in your own paper? _La Chouette_ was the one who published my interview, and they know what my signature looks like. They won't run this trash."

"Sign it," said her father, growing agitated. "It does not condemn you. It exonerates you. This retraction is the only thing that will save you now! You were misinformed and taken advantage of. Sign the retraction, Alice!"

She looked away.

"You do not understand the risks," her father said frantically. "Not just to the family. To you, _personally_."

"Auguste—" whimpered Maman.

"Your uncle Lenverpré is not the sort to take something like this lying down. He owns you, owns me, owns all of us. He will destroy you, and I will not be able to stop him."

Alice looked at him, finally. He was distraught, his thinning gray hair frizzled and wispy, his eyes bloodshot. "You used to say fear hinders progress," she said gravely. "And you were right. You are the most fearful little man."

Her father stepped back, deflating. "You'll end up in a convent," he muttered. 

"At least there will be no men there."

He backed away shaking his head.

"Remember to lock the door," Alice called after him.

She sat. She paced some more. She forced herself to eat before she fainted from hunger. She drank water and splashed it on her face. The sky was gray with the beginnings of twilight when she heard shouts outside her window. Julien was standing down on the gravel drive, yelling up at her. She listened, watching him from behind a curtain.

"I didn't know, Alice!" he called. "Everyone said it was an attack! I was sure he was guilty— I didn't know! Your father admitted the truth to me; I realize I betrayed your trust. I can't help him now, it's too late. I know I can never make it up to you, but I can get you in to see him, if you'll let me. It's all I can do."

Alice threw open the window. "Take me to him," she called out breathessly. "Before it's too late."

* * *

It took Julien a couple of hours to make the necessary preparations. The whole time Alice lived in terror that her father would come home and obstruct her, or that Julien would not keep his word, or that some other emergency would arise. But after sundown he reappeared at her gates in his carriage, and her mother let her out of her room so she could go meet him. He drove her to La Roquette Prison in the dark, got out to talk to the warden for a few minutes, and came back.

"It's done," he said, swallowing. "You can go. I bought you an hour. François will come to meet you afterward. I… I can't. But he will take you home, or wherever you want to go."

Alice stared at him, her eyes glazed with misery. He was trying not to cry. "I'm sorry it had to be this way," she said.

He looked at her, and the tears flowed. "So am I."

"Julien…"

"Go. Don't waste time."

She pressed his hand. "Thank you," she said, and climbed out. The carriage drove away without her, and she followed a guard inside the oppressive stone walls of the penitentiary. He led her past the front rooms, beyond heavy locked doors, through hallways lined with cells. Most were occupied, and their inmates stared out at her through tiny barred windows.

"Mademoiselle de Jeansin?" said a familiar voice. Alice looked up, startled.

"Inspector Hennion?" 

"Don't talk to him," commanded the guard. "Come, Mademoiselle, death row is this way."

He stopped at a thick black door at the end of a long hallway, unlocking it with an enormous iron key. The door creaked open; the interior was dimly lit by the bright searchlights that illuminated the courtyard just outside. A figure on the bed sat up. The guard bolted the door behind her.

Victor rushed over, enfolding her in his arms. It was colder in this cell than outside, he was shivering. But his lips were warm on hers, and he held her tightly.

"I talked to the press," she whispered, struggling to get the words past the kisses he was stealing from her. "I told them the truth. Everything is going to be alright, my love." 

He held her face in his hands, and smiled sadly down at her. "They already tried me," he said, shaking his head. "The execution is already set, they take my head at dawn. It's over."

"They can't do that— they can't—" 

He kissed the tears pouring down her cheeks, openly crying himself. She beat against his chest with her fists and screamed, but still he held her. "Look at me," he said softly, "look at me. There is nothing to regret. Without all this I might never have met you. That alone is worth dying for."

"No," she moaned, "no, no, no—"

He pulled her over to the rusted cot and lay down on it, folding her into his arms, his lips on the back of her neck. She tried to get her crying under control; she had so little time with him before he was murdered, and how much of that was left?

"I should have left with you when you wanted me to," she whimpered. "I'm sorry, Victor, I'm so sorry. You might have lived, we might have been together…"

"Let's imagine we did," he said, turning her so she was looking up at him. His fingers grazed her jawline, moving down her throat. "For as long as we have left, let's imagine we have a whole lifetime." A fresh stream of tears ran down into her hair, but she blinked them away. "I'll kiss you every morning, just like this." He pressed his lips softly to her damp cheeks, first one and then the other. 

"Who— who would wake up first?" she asked, trying to picture it. Trying to see a life with him.

"Sometimes you. Sometimes me. When our children are babies, they'll keep us up at night. Like Miette."

Their children. Dear God, she could not do this, she could not live without him—

"When they get big enough to sleep through the night," he said, sing-song like he was telling her a bedtime story, "we'll still wake up. We'll keep each other from sleeping." His hand slipped through the open collar of her coat to caress her breast through the delicate linen of her shirtwaist. She was ashamed by a sudden wet warmth between her legs.

"We'll be so used to each other," she offered, "maybe it will begin to seem common." He smiled, kissing the curve of her throat. 

"I hope it will," he said, sliding his hand under her skirts and up her thigh. She let her legs fall open, inviting him. "It will be common, familiar— we will make love so much we get sick of it. Then we will fight, and your cheeks will get red like they do when you're so angry you could bite someone, and then I will want you all over again. I will apologize, throw myself on your mercy. Even when I'm right." He raised his eyebrows at her so slyly it startled a laugh from her, a laugh with a sob just behind it. "Every time we fight," he whispered, "we will love each other more."

"We won't fight _that_ much," she objected, unbuttoning his pants and sliding them down his hips. 

"Just enough to keep things interesting." She positioned him at her entrance, rubbing him back and forth against her slickness. He slid into her with a low groan, his eyes screwed shut. He pulled out almost all the way, and then plunged inside her again. Alice bent her leg at the knee, holding it up against her chest, allowing him to penetrate almost to her womb. There was a dull inner ache where she was unaccustomed to being so deeply touched. She imagined he was leaving a bruise that would never show and never fade, and felt a rising pleasure that corresponded exactly to the pain. Victor stroked the outside of her cunt with his fingers as he plundered her internally. His eyes remained fixed on her face, waiting for her to peak, and when she did he smiled triumphantly in the dark. Head thrown back, wracked with pleasure, she met his quickening thrusts with an eager uplifting of her hips. They finished together, floating on a shared, endless sea. They lay joined, breathing hard, for a long time.

"When we're old," said Alice, smoothing his rough-cut hair off his face, "I'll still think you're the most beautiful man I've ever seen."

"Your standards are too low," he joked. "I'll lose all my teeth— one per year until they're all gone. I'll have a hunchback; you can see, it's starting now."

"I'll be wrinkled as a walnut," she suggested. "And we'll both be scrawny, because I'll never get any better at cooking than I am now. All I can cook is scrambled eggs."

"I can make toast," he offered, pulling his pants back up one-handed, the other hand still intertwined with hers. "But only if someone else makes the bread."

"We can live on that. We can live—"

The jingling of the guard's keys was approaching down the hall. Alice stiffened, frozen in fear. "No," she moaned, "not yet, it's not time, it hasn't been an hour—"

"Alice," he said, cradling her cheek, forcing her to look him in the eyes, "don't come tomorrow. I don't want you to see it. Promise me you'll stay away."

The door slammed open; Victor was torn from her and thrown against a wall. She ran to him, but the guard grabbed her by the arm and dragged her from the cell, locking the door before she could rush back in.

"Victor," she sobbed, "Victor—"

"Swear it, Alice!" he shouted after her, his voice echoing down the hall, mingling with the shouts of other inmates as she passed. "Swear you'll stay away!" She was crying too hard to answer.


	10. Chapter 10

Julien's driver had been instructed to see her safely wherever she wished to go.

"Take me to the nearest church," she said dully. He drove her to the Church of Saint-Ambroise and offered to wait until she came out, but she sent him away. 

She stayed on her knees all night. She prayed and begged and abused God by turns. She prayed that He would spare Victor as He had on the night of the fire. She prayed that He would send a reprieve. Her prayers grew more and more desperate as the hours passed. Toward dawn, she was no longer bargaining for Victor's life.

 _Let his death not hurt,_ she prayed. _Let him feel no pain, let him be carried to Your side without suffering. Dear God, let him not be erased from this earth. Let me bear a child; let our love not have been in vain. If You let me, I will raise Victor's child to glorify You and magnify Your name. Let me have this, God. Let him not be truly gone._

Birds were beginning to sing outside. Alice shot to her feet. She hurried out of the church, barely pausing to genuflect. The sky was just starting to pinken in the east; it was not yet dawn, he was still alive. She stumbled the few blocks to the prison, her legs stiff from kneeling. There was a crowd already in the courtyard, milling around, eager for a show. Alice stood with them, hating them for their bloodthirstiness but unwilling to go very far away. She must see him. She must fill her eyes with him one more time.

The door to the prison swung open and a group of guards trooped out, Victor in the center. His hands were bound by rough rope and he was coatless, visibly shivering in the morning breeze. He swayed and stumbled as he walked, his face white. 

The collar of his shirt had been cut away.

It was that small detail that returned some fire to Alice's frozen limbs. The crowd was going mad, shouting for Victor's head, trying to get close enough to land a blow on his undefended face and chest. Alice elbowed her way through the crush, calling out his name. She slipped between two guards who were holding back the crowd and threw herself at Victor, flinging her arms around his neck. 

"He's innocent," she sobbed, but no one had listened to her before and no one was listening to her now. 

"I'll miss you," she thought she heard him say. Then, as she was dragged bodily from him, "Don't watch." His voice rose, to be heard over the din. "Don't watch, Alice!"

A guard flung her back into the crowd; she almost lost her feet, but someone heaved her upright. The guards had pushed him up onto the scaffold; they placed him on the bascule and lowered the crossbar over his neck. The crowd lost their minds, screaming. Policemen watched from aside the scaffold, some impassive, some looking as if they were going to be sick.

Alice felt hands grab her arms. She clawed and scratched at the person who held her, but he fended off her attacks. "Mademoiselle de Jeansin, do as he says. Don't look!" 

She knew him. It was one of the copywriters for _La Chouette_. He had taken notes during her interview; he had a notebook and pencil out now, but he slipped them back into his pocket and put his arms around Alice. She let him turn her away from the scaffold, let him protect her from this unholy sight. The police commissioner called for silence; the crowd, eager for the final act, obligingly quieted down.

He said a few words she did not hear. Then another voice spoke, a voice she knew.

"Papa?" she breathed, whipping around. Her father had climbed up the scaffold. He was appealing to the police commissioner; she could not hear what they were saying. The commissioner shook his head, looking annoyed. Her father took something out of his pocket and showed it to the commissioner: his identification. The crowd was growing restless. 

A pistol was fired into the air. Alice saw Victor flinch on the lunette. She waited, unblinking.

"This execution is suspended pending further investigation," announced the police commissioner curtly. The crowd erupted in jeers, screaming and beating their fists at a fever pitch. But the police commissioner had said all he intended to say. He nodded to the guards, who raised the lunette and hauled Victor up by the back of his shirt. Alice was sobbing again. She tasted blood: she had bitten her lip so hard she had broken the skin. Victor, dazed and unmoving, his filthy shirt soaked with sweat, gazed heavenward. The blue of the sky shone in his beautiful eyes. 

* * *

Alice's mother found her in the crowd, still clinging to the copywriter who had kept her on her feet. She got her daughter safely home, at times supporting her whole weight as Alice's legs failed her.

"I prayed to God," she murmured. "I prayed, but I did not have any hope."

"God is good," said her mother, smoothing her hair from her sweaty face. "When you didn't come home, we were afraid. We realized you must have gone to the execution. Your father saw you in the crowd; he saw you almost crushed. It awakened his conscience. I'm only sorry it took so long."

Alice did not answer her. She was finally falling asleep.

* * *

The morning of Victor's release, Alice was up and dressed at dawn. She put some money in her chatelaine and looped it inside the waistband of her skirt. She passed by her father's study on her way downstairs; he was at his desk, still in his pajamas, filling page after page with tiny writing. He looked up as she paused in the doorway.

"I'm going, Papa," she said.

"To see him?"

"Yes, Papa."

He looked down at what he was writing. He seemed to have no fight left in him. "Take Georges with you," he said, sighing. "And Alice…"

"Yes?"

"Please come home tonight."

Alice did not answer.

The crowd outside the prison gate was of an altogether different character to the day before, considerably less well-dressed and chanting Victor's name and the names of his compatriots. Those arrested at Boucan emerged from the prison in a thin stream, one at a time as their paperwork was processed. With each person who came out, the excitement of the crowd increased. The sun climbed higher, and still he did not come. Alice climbed up onto the steps of the scaffold. She could feel the hateful machinery at her back, but she had to be able to _see_ —

Then he was there, the last to be released. He walked down the dark passageway under the prison wall, his gait uneven. The guard let him through, and he was swarmed by friends and comrades. He was passed from hand to hand, clapped on the back, his hair tousled; but all the time he continued to scan the crowd, looking for her. Alice waved her arm and screamed his name. Their eyes met; he smiled. Alice fought her way through the glut of people, falling into his arms. She saw no sight but the sight of his face, so close to hers, his eyes blue and smiling and alive. She heard no sound but his voice, low and sweet. "My love, come here," he was saying. They kissed there in the shadow of the prison until they were faint.

Alice hailed a cab and put Victor inside, followed by anyone else would fit, until the cabbie said his team would take no more. The only space left for Alice when she climbed in was in Victor's lap, and they rode the whole way with his arms around her waist and his head resting against her back.

The cabaret had been boarded up after the raid, but a neighbor came by with an axe and helped them tear the boards down. Then bread and meat came from shops down the street, and someone was making coffee behind the bar, enough for everyone. Victor was wobbling from hunger and exhaustion; Alice made him sit and wanted to go get him something to eat, but he took her hand and pulled her onto the bench beside him. Soon they were crowded on both sides by people squeezing onto the bench with food and coffee and weak beer. Still more people poured in, to kiss Victor on both cheeks and shake his hand. Someone did a dramatic reading of the article in _La Chouette_. Someone else began singing, and everyone took up the tune. Victor's release from prison was an occasion for joy, because he had grown up in their midst and was well-known to all in the neighborhood. But they were celebrating more than just that. As a group they had been targeted; as a group they were reprieved. 

Alice drank coffee and laughed with everyone else. If they knew she was bourgeois trash they didn't care. When she saw Victor beginning to look dazed, she took his hand and pulled him to his feet. "Come upstairs," she said. "I want to take care of you."

Victor grinned.

She sent him ahead of her, and found her way to the kitchen for a bucket of water which she had to coax laboriously from a rust-stiffened pump. She carried this up and found Victor lying on the bed, Miette frantically kneading his stomach. 

"Oh, Miette, poor baby," cooed Alice "were you stuck here alone all this time? _Ts-ts-ts_ , come here and have something to drink." She filled Miette's water dish from the bucket and filled an enamel cup for Victor. "You too," she commanded. "Drink. You need more than just coffee."

He downed the cupful and stood up, putting his arms around Alice from behind and kissing the back of her neck.

"No you don't," she scolded, sidling out of his arms. He grinned and shrugged, and let her undress him. His clothes were so foul from his stint in jail that she thought they were fit only for burning; she left them in a pile in the corner which Miette investigated with interest. The tub was not big enough for Victor to do more than kneel in, and Alice was mindful of the water; she did not want to have to go down for more. She washed his hair first, combing her fingers gently through until Victor was practically purring in her hands. She washed the rest of him from the top down, making him stand up when she reached his filthy feet. Then she dried him off with his one moderately-clean towel, and dug through the chest at the end of his bed for clean clothes.

"Don't bother," he murmured, pulling her flush against his warm damp body, his hands going behind her back to unbutton her shirtwaist. "Don't need 'em." He rid her of her clothes and tossed her down onto the bed.

"You were falling asleep a moment ago," Alice laughed, but her laugh was cut short by his tongue between her thighs.

"They didn't feed me at all in that jail cell," he said, looking up at her from underneath those mismatched brows. "I'm starving." He slung her legs up over his shoulders, the better to taste her, and did not stop until she cried out, clutching the bedclothes in both white-knuckled fists. Without even giving her a moment to catch her breath he flipped her over and entered her from behind, his chest pressed against her back and his lips on her neck. She angled her hips, inviting his urgent thrusts, overwhelmed by a delicious tightness as he filled her once more. She came a second time pressed into the mattress, and he poured himself into her moments later before collapsing sideways. The bedsheet was a pool of sweat and other substances, and cat hair stuck to Alice's damp body and tickled her. Victor reached out blindly and dragged her into his arms, pressing a fervent kiss to the top of her head.

"Why did you come to the execution?" he asked, his breath warm in her hair. "I told you to stay away."

Alice squeezed her eyes shut, clinging to him more tightly. "I had to see you," she said. "For as long as I could. I owe you my life; I could not let you die alone."

* * *

Even if they had tried to resume their control over her movements, Alice's parents knew now how far she was willing to go. Her father was so guilty and so worn-out from the legal proceedings which dragged on for weeks that he could muster no more than the occasional half-hearted warning when he thought she might be going to see Victor. Her mother was worried about her daughter's reputation, but her reputation could go entirely to hell as far as Alice was concerned. 

Some of her friends cut her dead, shocked at her scandalising conduct in the weeks following the fire. A certain number of them thought she had become a fascinating oddity, a person of interest, gossiping about her behind her back even as they smiled to her face. But Alice did not really care whether she was invited to the right parties anymore. She did not want to attract a new suitor or answer prying questions about the infamous German anarchist. She had her brother and sister, her aunt, her parents. She had Victor, alive; she had Odette. 

Odette's misfortunes, it seemed, were never to end. Her husband had been killed in an accident on the very morning that Monsieur de Jeansin was confessing to the police. Alice sent a card of condolence, offering her company and support whenever Odette felt up to having visitors. It was another week after that before she received a card back, inviting her to come take tea in the garden. Alice walked across their adjoining yards under a sweet summer sky and found her neighbor in the acre-long greensward watching her son have his riding lesson.

"I'm glad you came," said Odette. They looked out over the green, a fresh light wind in their faces. Alice watched Thomas with an attendant on a white horse. The attendant sat behind him and was handling the reins, demonstrating for Thomas how to direct the horse this way and that. They made a wide turn and rode back the other way; Alice got a look at the attendant's face.

"What's Jean doing here?" she asked, surprised.

"He lives here now," said Odette. "Madame Huchon hired him as a coachman. He's wonderful with Thomas."

"He looks… happy," said Alice, watching Jean position Thomas's hands on the reins, letting him have a try. His face was relaxed and smiling. Thomas looked happy too, chattering at top speed in Jean's listening ear. "He was so heartbroken. I thought I might never see him smile again; he and Rose were married, you know. And so in love…"

"It isn't America," said Odette. "But we're happy here."

It took a moment for her words to sink in. Alice looked slowly at her friend. Odette had let the veil fall from her face. In the daylight, Alice was struck even more strongly by how closely Odette resembled Rose: the stark blue eyes, the strong jaw. Even a freckle above the right eyebrow that they shared…

"I hate myself for doubting him," Odette— but not Odette— was saying. "I was afraid to be seen by him. Afraid he would reject me, that he wouldn't love me like this. Or recognize me at all." 

It could not be; but Alice could not push away the hope that flooded her heart. 

"He's still here," her dearest friend was saying, "so I thought I would try my luck with you."

"Rose," Alice breathed, falling into Rose's open arms, "forgive me— forgive me, I didn't know."

"I'm here," Rose whispered. "We survived."

"How can this be? We looked for you for so long, you were dead—"

"Madame Huchon found me first," said Rose. "In the hospital, badly burned, she believed for a moment I was her daughter. When she realized her mistake a plan had already begun to form. Odette did not make it. I'm sorry, Alice."

Alice swallowed back tears. So Odette was gone. No gift came without its cost. But she could not bring herself to regret that it was Rose who had survived, although she was ashamed of what that thought implied and would not allow it to remain long in her mind. "What happened?" she asked. "If Madame Huchon knew her mistake…"

"She made me a proposition," said Rose. "If I would agree to care for Thomas and protect him from his libertine father, she would leave me everything. I would not have done it, not for all the wealth in the world. But I was so afraid that I would not be accepted, that I would be rejected for my deformity. When even you didn't recognize me…"

"But I did recognize you," said Alice, remembering. "You look a great deal like Odette, but you are not identical. Not to one who knows your face, not to one who loves you. As I do."

"But you didn't say…" breathed Rose.

"I saw your face everywhere I looked," admitted Alice. "I was sure I was imagining it. I pushed the thought away. I was ashamed of myself for failing Odette when she needed me."

"Madame Huchon only wanted me to help her prevent La Trémoille from inheriting her wealth and squandering it before Thomas came of age. But he… he's such a sweet boy. He knows, too. He saw at once; he even remembered me from the Bazaar. He has been mourning his Mama all this time, but he has a heart that wishes for love. And he deserves to be cared for. His father would not, and soon his grandmother will not be able to. But I can love him, and I intend to. For as long as he needs me, I will care for him. And soon he will have a baby brother or sister."

"Oh, Rose, that is such wonderful news! And Jean is here with you, and I will be right next door. Rose, God has been merciful."

* * *

The trial dragged on for months. The whole time, Auguste Jeansin sorted through his finances. The loan Marc-Antoine had given him would be enough to keep the paper going until it could recoup what he had lost on the stock market, even with the sizable fine he owed after the fire. Alice would not be required to marry someone wealthy and generous, which was just as well because she wouldn't have in any case. 

Victor's adoptive father Janvier had been killed in the raid that resulted in Victor's arrest. Janvier had willed Le Boucan to his two sons upon his death; but Jacques had been killed, too, so everything fell on Victor's shoulders. He and Alice talked constantly about what should be done. He wanted to keep the cabaret open as a place for the free and open exchange of ideas. Alice, who had been trained from childhood in the art of running a large establishment, had definite ideas about how this could be accomplished. 

"I know you don't care about money," she said, "but the city of Paris does. Taxes must be paid, lights must be kept on, and water must continue to run. The bar and cabaret can be made to generate income, as they did under Janvier. As for the boarding rooms upstairs…"

"I'm not a landlord," said Victor. "I'm not interested in squeezing rent out of people who have nowhere else to go."

"Then don't make them pay in rent," she suggested. "Anyone who is willing to work can have a room. No one wants to live in a home infested with vermin and made dirty by other people, but if rent could be paid by barter or communal labor..."

"You are beginning to sound like a mutualist," he teased.

In January, just after the start of the new year, Victor Minville came to the house in broad daylight. Alice, who had been expecting him, brought him into the drawing room and sent the butler to summon her parents. They were surprised to see him; Maman had met him once or twice on walks in the park with her daughter, but Monsieur Jeansin had not seen Victor since he climbed out of Alice's bedroom window in May.

"Maman, Papa," said Alice, "Victor and I are getting married on Thursday, in Notre Dame de la Croix."

" _This_ Thursday?" repeated Maman. "Alice, planning a wedding takes _ages!_ "

"If you think I'm giving you permission to marry my daughter—" her father burst out, jabbing his finger at Victor.

"We're not asking permission," he answered calmly. "Just letting you know, in case you wanted to come."

"This is nonsense," fumed Papa. "Alice, I've looked the other way while you ran around with this… _hm_ , because I hoped you would come to your senses when the fun of defying your family wore off. But enough is enough. Consider me sufficiently chastened for my sins; you do not have to prove a point by ruining your life."

"I'm not ruining my life," said Alice, "I'm beginning it."

"What do you intend to live on?" he demanded. "You won't get a franc from me—"

"Auguste, don't be ridiculous," interrupted Maman. "Of course she will have her dowry."

"Allow her dowry, a sizeable sum, to pass straight into the hands of a man who doesn't understand the value of money?" fumed Papa.

"I understand money," said Victor scornfully. "I just don't respect it."

Papa threw his hands up and stormed out. This seemed to him the most outrageous thing of all.

"Bernard," called Maman, to a footman in the foyer, "bring tea and sandwiches to the drawing room. And three cups. Now, Monsieur Minville, please sit down."

Maman interviewed Victor for a half hour about his living situation, plans for the future, and religious views. He answered all her questions simply and honestly. He even, once or twice, managed to make her smile. He could be charming if he tried.

Afterward, Maman shook Victor's hand. "You might have given us a little more warning," she chastised. "How long have you intended this?"

"About six months," he admitted with a grin.

"You should know, young man, that my love for my daughter supersedes all other considerations. Should the unthinkable occur and she finds that she has been deceived in your character…"

"Maman!"

But Victor was unoffended. "I cannot guarantee that you or anyone else will like every choice I make for the rest of my life; but I will try, as I always have, to live according to the dictates of my conscience. I thank you for your frankness, Madame de Jeansin."

"Very well, very well. You'd better go before Auguste comes back down with a pistol. We'll see you in church on Thursday." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who's read this far; I'll post one more tiny chapter to wrap everything up, and then it's finished! Let me know what you thought and I hope you have a wonderful week!


	11. Epilogue

On the morning of May 4th, 1900, Alice Minville awoke before dawn with a cat stepping on her bladder. She pushed Miette off the bed and disengaged from her husband's drowsy warmth. She moved quietly and carefully; Victor had been stuck bartending until the early hours and she wanted to let him sleep in a little. After wrapping a wool dressing gown around her shoulders, she went to check on the baby in his crib. Soon enough he would be awake and generating an incredible amount of noise and bother, but just now Beau's little tummy rose and fell peacefully, his delicate pink eyelids fluttering. A shock of coppery hair stuck straight up from his small head. 

Miette, annoyed that Alice was taking so long, let out a wail of unbridled feline suffering. "Yes, yes, your majesty, come get your breakfast. Little tyrant." She went downstairs and set a fire going in the smallest of the kitchen's three stoves; the others wouldn't be lit until later, when patrons began to come in wanting food and drink. 

While water came to a boil she put a dish of yesterday's meat on the floor for Miette to make a mess of. She poured the singing kettle into a porcelain pitcher and topped it off with water from the tap. She had used most of her dowry to update the plumbing at Le Boucan. The establishment's twenty or so semi-permanent residents could have as much clean water as they liked, but they had to heat it themselves. She and Victor hoped to save up for a water boiler large enough to service the whole building in a few years.

She brought the steaming pitcher back up to the room she and Victor shared. It was larger than his old one, made pretty with paint on the walls and a secondhand rug. There were no photographs, but one of their artist friends had given them a pastel drawing for their second wedding anniversary, the pair of them depicted at the bar in impressionistic daubs of lavender and lemon and peach. And the poster of Eva Schaff hung on the wall over the baby's crib; he drifted off staring at it every night. 

A poster and a well-worn rug were what passed for luxuries to Alice now. When she went to visit her family or Rose she was plied with tea served in gilt cups, fanciful cakes frosted pink and pale blue, crystal bowls of candied fruit. It was pleasant, and a part of her week she looked forward to immensely; but decadence felt like an excursion from reality, and not a state in which she was tempted to live permanently. 

Cold beer and hot bread for lunch on Saturdays, a sticky kiss from Beau, a snowball fight in the street outside: these were her real life. Victor's voice reaching her from another room, the little rhythm he tapped out on Beau's tummy to make him giggle, the curve of his body warm against her back at night. It was not the grand events that made up a life, Alice thought. It was the little ones. The tragedy at the Bazaar and its subsequent terrors still held a place in her mind, but smaller pleasures had crowded around it like flowers around a grave until even the pain held a measure of joy.

Alice washed her face and hands quickly, using only half the water and leaving the rest to wash up Beau after his breakfast. She sat at her desk in the corner and looked over what she had to do today. Linens had to be rotated in all the resident rooms; meals planned for the next week; Beau taken for a walk if the weather was fine. And about a hundred other things big and small which required her attention. 

The work that kept Le Boucan clean and in good repair was shared by all its twenty or so semi-permanent residents, who rotated chores weekly in exchange for room and board. Everyone had to empty their own chamber pots and keep their own rooms tidy, in addition to shifts behind the bar or cleaning the public rooms or helping with laundry. It took an incredible amount of labor to make so large a residence comfortable and neat, labor which could only be lessened by sharing it. Le Boucan was not the only such establishment in Belleville; there was a proliferation of similar hostels that made Alice feel hopeful for the future. Victor's dream— now her dream also— was not only a fantasy. They were helping to make it real.

An arrangement like this naturally attracted a certain kind of tenant, and Le Boucan's reputation as a hotbed of anarchism had only grown. It still got raided a few times a year, but Victor always got a heads up from Hennion when such an event was imminent, so that the police stomped around a mostly-empty cabaret and then slunk away empty-handed. The last time it had happened, Alice had given the newborn Beau to one of his half-dozen resident aunts to take for a walk around the block. Then she had followed the police around while they checked the scrupulously clean bedrooms for evidence of criminal activity, tapping her well-polished boot until they gave up and left, tipping their hats at her on the stoop. Not for nothing had Alice been raised by Mathilde de Jeansin. That had been six months ago, and not a peep since.

Alice got dressed in chemise and corset— underbust, as she was still nursing, with a brassiere that buttoned in front— stockings, boots, front-button blouse and a dark skirt that would not show dirt. There was a hand on her shoulder, warm lips at her throat. 

"Why aren't you asleep?" she asked, smiling.

"Bed's cold without you," Victor murmured. "Come warm it."

"I'm already dressed," she sighed.

"A problem with an easy solution." His hand slid down her shirt, palming her breast. This early in the morning, all it accomplished was to release a little milk into the pads she stuffed into her brassiere to absorb leakages. This was not the first time such a thing had happened, and would not be the last; Victor barely even noticed. He pulled her to her feet and buried his nose in her neck, inhaling her scent. She wrapped her arms around his waist and held him tightly until Beau started moving around, a precursor to his morning fuss. Victor left one final kiss on Alice's lips before going to the crib to scoop up his son, changing his soaked diaper while Alice finished pinning up her hair. Victor lay back down, sitting Beau in the middle of the bed so he could not roll himself off the edge by accident. 

"Isn't it comfortable in this nice warm bed?" he asked Beau, shooting Alice a teasing glance. "Don't you think Maman should come join us?" Beau drooled in answer.

Alice laughed, relenting. She lay down on her side, and Beau scooted over to latch on to the breast she had pulled out of her shirt. Victor lay watching his wife nurse his son until he could not keep his eyes open anymore, and he drifted back to sleep. Alice looked from Beau to his father, imprinting their beloved faces on her heart. When Beau was full, he was happy to lie for fifteen minutes without fussing, trying to figure out how to get his mother's silver watch off her wrist and into his mouth. 

Only fifteen minutes, but it was enough to fill a lifetime.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Imagine my joy when I was researching neighborhood in late-nineteenth century Paris and realized that Belleville really WAS a hotbed of this kind of semi-commune during this period. So I think it makes perfect sense for their life to take this turn, and I think they can make a very successful go of it. 
> 
> Thank you for reading! How do you feel about the ending? What would you want to go differently for them?
> 
> That's all!


End file.
